Bankinter Stock

Good morning, and welcome to Bankinter's results presentation for the first half of 2026. Our financial statements were posted to market authorities early this morning, and all materials can be found on our corporate website. Please refer to the disclaimer in the presentation, and please note that this call is being recorded.

We are joined today by our Chief Executive Officer, Gloria Ortiz; and our Chief Financial Officer, Jacobo Diaz.

Gloria, over to you.

Thank you, Laurie. Before talking about results, I wanted to express my sincere congratulations to the Spanish football team for their success in the World Cup last week from the whole of Bankinter team.

Well, coming back to results, we have delivered another strong quarter and excellent results for the first half of the year. Profitable growth and disciplined execution once again translated into strong shareholder value creation, EUR 605 million of net profit, a ROTE above 20%, continued capital generation and 17% increase in shareholder value. What is quite encouraging is the quality and consistency of the performance. We continue to grow while improving margins, maintaining excellent asset quality and strengthening capital. This is another demonstration of the Bankinter way, grow better, execute better and create more value through the cycle.

The first pillar of our model is diversified organic growth, supported by the strength of our franchise and our continued ambitions to grow across all business and geographies. Total customer volumes increased by EUR 18 billion or 8% over last 12 months. Customer lending grew by 5%, while customer funds increased by 10%, supported by a 2% increase in on-balance sheet retail deposits and an excellent 20% growth in assets under management, reflecting both strong net inflows into our Wealth Management business and the quality of our customer base.

Growth remains well diversified geographically with Spain providing scale and Portugal and Ireland continuing to grow at double-digit rates. Growing better is not only about volumes, it is also about building a stronger and more diversified revenue base. Gross operating income increased by 7.3% in the first half of the year with both net interest income and fees reaching record quarterly levels in the second quarter. Net interest income grew 3% quarter-on-quarter to EUR 589 million, while fee income increased by 17% to EUR 237 million. Importantly, an increasing share of our growth is coming from recurring and capital-light fee businesses such as Wealth Management and Brokerage, making our revenue mix more balanced and resilient.

The second element of our model is disciplined execution. As we grow, we remain very focused on the 3 levers that sustain value creation over time: efficiency, asset quality and capital generation. Our cost-to-income ratio has improved significantly, falling to 34.3% from 36.1% in 2025. This demonstrates the scalability of our business model and highlights an important point.

In banking, scale alone does not warranty efficiency. What matters is agility, disciplined execution, a culture that remains aligned as the organization grows. These have long been the key strengths of Bankinter. Asset quality also remains a clear differentiator with an NPL ratio below 2% and a prudent coverage ratio of 69% despite continued growth in customer volumes. At the same time, strong earnings generation has allowed us to further strengthen our capital position with CET1 increasing to 12.9%, while maintaining our position as one of the most resilient banks in Europe.

The third lever of our model is shareholder value creation. ROTE increased above 20%. Earnings per share grew 11%, and shareholder value generation, measured through tangible book value plus dividends, increased by 17% over the last 12 months. Importantly, strong capital generation allows us to do more than simply grow the business. It gives us the flexibility to invest in attractive opportunities that strengthen the franchise and diversify future earnings streams, including the alternative investment platforms announced this year and our entry into the Netherlands through Tulp, while at the same time, continuing to enhance shareholder returns. That is why we continue to view Bankinter as a long-term compounder capable of increasing earnings, creating value and delivering attractive shareholder returns through the cycle.

Now, I leave you with Jacobo for a more detailed description of our P&L and businesses.

Thank you, Gloria. Good morning. Let me briefly summarize the income statement. Net profit reached EUR 315 million in the quarter, up 8% quarter-on-quarter and 16% year-on-year, bringing first half net profit to EUR 605 million, up 12%. Performance accelerated in the second quarter versus the first, with revenues up 6% quarter-on-quarter and net profit up 8%. Performance -- this was driven by strong revenue growth of 7% year-to-date with both NII and fees contributing positively, while costs remain contained and provisions under control.

I'll now walk through the main drivers behind these lines in more detail. Next page, on NII. NII continued to evolve positively in the second quarter, reaching EUR 589 million, up 5% year-on-year and 3% quarter-on-quarter. This performance reflects solid volume growth across the franchise, together with continued pricing discipline, allowing us to improve customer margin to 2.71%, while keeping NIM broadly stable.

On fees, fee income accelerated further in the second quarter, reaching EUR 237 million, up 23% year-on-year, while results include EUR 23 million of relevant income this quarter from a performance fee on the sale of an alternative investment vehicle announced in April. It is worth highlighting that our recurring asset management and brokerage business still grew by an impressive 19% year-on-year, excluding this item. This reflects strong customer activity, continued net inflows and the increasing contribution of higher value-added investment products to our fee base.

Let me spend a moment on Bankinter Investment, which contributed to the -- with the EUR 23 million performance fee we discussed in this previous slide. Importantly, we do not view this as simply a one-off event. It reflects a platform that is reaching greater scale and maturity with a growing proportion of vintages entering the stage where performance fees and equity accounted earnings can increasingly contribute to results. Since its launch in 2017, we have built a differentiated alternative investments platform that today manage 32 vehicles, serves more than 20,000 investors and has accumulated EUR 5.9 billion of committed capital.

Importantly, around 1/3 of committed capital comes from vintages launched before 2020, providing a growing pool of assets approaching the stage where monetization opportunity become increasingly relevant. The corporate transactions announced with Plenium & Access Capital Partners last quarter represent the next step in this strategy. They expand our scale, deepen our capabilities and broaden our European footprint while maintaining the capital-light characteristics of the platform.

Overall, we believe Bankinter Investment is entering a new phase of scale and maturity in the business of alternative investment funds, creating additional opportunities for value creation through management fees, equity accounted earnings and performance-related revenues over time.

Moving into expenses. Turning to efficiency. We continue to deliver widening positive operating jaws in the first half of this year. As you can see, revenues increased by 7.3%, while expenses grew by only 2.7%, expanding the gap between revenue and cost growth to 4.6 percentage points compared with less than 1 percentage point last year. This reflects a combination of a strong commercial momentum and disciplined cost management. We continue to simplify our corporate structure, invest in technology, in digital capabilities and in growth initiatives while maintaining tight control over our cost base. As a result, our cost-to-income ratio improved further to 34.3%, down from 36.1% in '25, reinforcing the structural efficiency of our business model.

Looking at costs, growth remains well contained. Personnel expenses increased by just 1%, with most of the increase coming from amortization, reflecting our continued IT investment in the franchise. Overall, widening operating jaws remain a key driver of profitability growth, efficiency gains and strong capital generation.

Let me build on this efficiency a little bit and explain how technology and AI are helping us further enhance the scalability of our business model. Importantly, AI is not about reducing cost. It is a core enabler of our business model, allowing us to manage higher volumes, create additional capacity and provide better service to a growing number of customers without a proportional increase in resources. The chart on the left illustrated this clearly.

Since 2020, customer volumes have grown by 55%, while our workforce has increased by only 9% and has remained broadly stable since 2024. At the same time, our branch network remains essentially unchanged from more than 15 years ago. As a result, the annualized cost required to support each EUR 1 billion of customer volumes has decreased by 14%. Put differently, we are handling substantially more business today with broadly the same physical footprint and a largely stable workforce.

Today, we continue to invest more than 10% of gross revenues in technology while increasingly embedding AI across the organization. We are deploying -- we have already deployed AI through a combination of top-down initiatives and bottom-up adoption with growing employee engagement and an expanding range of practical use cases across the bank.

Moving into the next page. As we continue to grow the balance sheet, asset quality remains very strong. Cost of risk remained low and stable at 33 basis points despite the strong growth in lending volumes over the last 12 months, while other provisions remain well controlled at just 8 basis points. Together, these metrics continue to demonstrate the quality of our diversified and disciplined growth.

Let me conclude the income statement review. The earnings momentum continues to reflect the strength of our business model. Net profit increased to a record of EUR 315 million, up 16% year-on-year and accelerating versus the first quarter, supported by solid revenue growth, positive operating jaws and stable risk costs. Asset quality remains a clear strength of the franchise. NPLs continue to improve, coverage remained robust, and we continue to outperform the sector across all geographies. Risk metrics remain stable and well controlled with no signs of deterioration despite strong business growth.

Moving into capital. CET1 closed the quarter at 12.91%, comfortably above our target operating range. The strength of our earnings generation more than offset business growth, allowing us to further strengthen our capital position while continuing to support growth across the franchise. These provide us with significant flexibility to support future growth -- future organic growth, pursue attractive strategic opportunities and deliver enhanced shareholder value.

As discussed last quarter, in the coming months, we expect to complete the alternative investment transaction with Plenium & Access Capital Partners as well as the pending acquisition of Tulp, the Dutch digital platform, which Gloria will cover in a moment.

Together, these transactions are expected to have a combined capital impact of less than 40 basis points and are not reflected in today's CET1 ratio. It is also worth noting that the second phase of the Spanish countercyclical buffer will come into effect later this year, increasing our minimum CET1 requirements by approximately 40 basis points.

Beyond capital generation, our resilience remains a clear differentiator. The latest EBA stress test once again positioned Bankinter as the most resilient listed bank in the Eurozone, while our Pillar II requirement remains among the lowest in Europe.

Moving on to the performance of our geographies and businesses. Spain, Spain continues to perform strongly with revenues up 6% and pretax profit by 11%. Corporate and SME banking remained particularly strong with lending volumes growing 7%, while Wealth Management continued to deliver robust growth. Overall, strong commercial activity and operating discipline translated into further efficiency gains and another period of double-digit profit growth.

Portugal, turning to Portugal. The business continues to scale rapidly with revenues up 10% and pretax profit up 9% in the first half. Lending volumes increased by 8% and customer funds by 12%, reflecting the continued expansion of the franchise. Importantly, profit growth accelerated during the second quarter, reinforcing the positive trajectory of the business and supporting a strong first half result.

Ireland, the business continues to gain scale and deliver attractive growth. Customer lending increased 24%, led by mortgages balance, which grew by 29% year-on-year. As revenue increased 19%, we continue to generate positive operating leverage with pretax profit also growing 19% and the cost-to-income ratio improving by more than 2 percentage points.

Moving to next page with corporate and SME banking, where growth continues to outpace the market. Lending volumes increased 7% compared with sector growth of 3.6%, supporting further market share gains, where our international business remained a key contributor. In our retail business, customer acquisition remains strong with salary and digital account balances increasing 20% over the last 12 months.

In mortgages, although we continue to prioritize profitability over volume, we have seen origination trends improve significantly during the second quarter, with June production exceeding June '25 levels by 8%, while maintaining our disciplined pricing approach. This allow us to optimize capital allocation across the group, directing growth towards segments and geographies offering the most attractive risk-adjusted return, including Portugal and Ireland. At the same time, the mortgage back book continued to grow at healthy levels, increasing 3% year-on-year to EUR 39 billion.

Turning to Wealth Management. The business continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience despite periods of elevated market volatility. Total assets under management and custody increased by EUR 27 billion over the last 12 months, supported by both strong net inflows and positive market performance. In particular, assets under management grew by 20%, while assets under custody increased by 18%, delivering another year of strong double-digit growth. What is particularly encouraging is that clients continue to entrust us with a larger share of the savings even during periods of uncertainty, reflecting the strength of our wealth management franchise, the quality of our client base and the depth of our customer relationship.

Before handing back to Gloria, let me make -- let me take a moment to reflect our ambitions for full year '26. In the second quarter, we continued to deliver strong results. Customer margin recovered to 270 basis points. Recurring fees remained very strong, supported in this case by an extraordinary performance fee from our alternative investment vehicles, while efficiency continued to improve and provisions remain well contained.

While our certainty around the macroeconomic and interest rate environment remains, our underlying business trends continue to evolve broadly in line with our expectations. Having said that, we continue to deliver solid and diversified volume growth in line with our initial assumptions while maintaining a strong focus on capital allocation and risk-adjusted returns. Therefore, on the lending side, we continue to expect mid-single-digit growth, supported by resilient economic conditions across our geographies. Across the group, we expect growth trends in the second half to remain broadly consistent with those seen in the first half with Portugal and Ireland continuing to deliver strong growth and Spain maintaining solid momentum, particularly in corporate banking.

We will also continue to actively manage deposit volumes to maintain not only liquidity ratios around current levels with a deposit-to-loan ratio remaining slightly above 100% or the loan-to-deposit slightly below 100%, but also our strong cross-selling activity focused on building up volumes in assets under management and assets under custody, a strong source of stable fee generation and return on tangible equity.

On net interest income, our bias is still even more positive. This is supported by continued loan growth and current forward curves. We expect NII to continue growing quarter-by-quarter, allowing us to reach the upper end of our mid-single-digit growth ambition above our expected lending growth for the full year.

Once again, higher Euribor rates are supportive to our NII growth. Our NII sensitivity remains similar to previous quarters with a 7% increase in expected NII for the next 24 months for 100 basis points parallel shift increase. While we expect deposit costs to have reached the trough, we continue to target an average customer margin for the year on 270 basis points or slightly above.

On fees, strong recurring growth, combined with the performance fee recognized this quarter from our alternative funds franchise supports an upgrade of our fee growth ambition to low-double-digit for the full year from high-single-digit where we were before. We remain very confident in the outlook for Wealth Management.

We remain fully committed to maintain positive operating jaws. We expect cost growth to remain low, supporting a gap between revenue growth and cost growth at least in line with current levels. I remind you, our long-term ambition towards a 30% efficiency ratio is getting closer.

In terms of asset quality, our outlook remains stable. We continue to see no signs of deterioration, and we expect the cost of risk to remain around current levels. We also expect to continue generating capital at a strong pace, supporting organic growth, strategic opportunities, shareholder remuneration and resilient management buffers.

Over the long term, we expect to allocate excess capital first to profitable growth in our existing businesses and geographies, then to new business opportunities like those recently announced in alternative investment funds and in the Netherlands. And rest assured, any remaining excess capital will be returned to shareholders through the most efficient route as we have done in the past, like, for example, with the Linea Directa spin-off in 2021.

Finally, we expect to deliver a sustained level of return on tangible equity above 20% in the following quarters with disciplined capital allocation, disciplined execution and reflecting the long-term strength and sustainability of our business model and our ability to continue creating attractive and compounding value for our shareholders.

Thank you, Gloria, back to you, please.

Thank you, Jacobo. Before I speak about our recent announcement to acquire Tulp and enter the Netherlands, I would like to take a step back for a moment. While the geography may be new, the approach is not. The decisions we are making today follow the same principles that have guided Bankinter for decades.

What you see on this page is not a result of a particular year or market environment. It is the outcome of a business model that has applied the same principles consistently for decades. Part of the reason for that consistency is our strong alignment with shareholders. Around 30% of our share capital is represented by our Board, management team and employees. We think like owners because we are owners.

Over the years, we have combined solid organic growth with the development of new capabilities and selective geographical expansion through joint ventures and bolt-on acquisitions as reflected in the milestones shown in the slide. Whether it was Portugal, Avantcard in Ireland, the launch of a digital organization or the alternative investment transactions announced this year, we have consistently focused on opportunities that strengthen the franchise, expand our capabilities and create long-term value without distracting us from our core business or compromising our financial strength.

Our long-term track record speaks for itself over 5-, 10- and 15-year periods, we have consistently grown customer lending ahead of the sector while delivering superior value creation for shareholders. We often say that slow and steady wins the race, and we believe our history demonstrates exactly that.

Looking ahead, our objective remains unchanged. We will continue to grow prudently, allocate capital thoughtfully and invest in opportunities that can strengthen the franchise and create value over time. The initiatives shown on this timeline are all examples of that approach. They started small, they required patience, disciplined execution and ultimately became relevant contributors to growth and shareholder value. The acquisition of Tulp follows the same logic. It is not a change in strategy, but another step in the same journey, which brings me to the final slide.

Let me now spend a moment on Tulp and why we are excited about this opportunity. We see this as an attractive combination of limited downside risk and meaningful long-term upside. With Tulp, we are entering the third largest mortgage market in Europe through established platform, the business that has more than 10 years of operating experience in the Dutch market and currently originates around EUR 1 billion of mortgages each year. At the same time, the Dutch mortgage market combines larger scale, higher yields and historically lower levels of credit risk than Spain.

When we close the transaction, the capital impact will be limited to less than 15 basis points, giving us access to an attractive market while preserving the financial profile that investors expect from Bankinter. What I particularly like about Tulp is the flexibility of its business model. Tulp already successfully operates through a strong adviser network, institutional investors and funding through securitization, providing multiple sources of funding to support future growth. As with Portugal and Ireland, our approach will be progressive. We are establishing a new platform that can expand our growth opportunities and diversify earnings over time.

Looking further ahead, our ambition remains clear. Spain will continue to be our core business, but we want the group to become increasingly diversified. Over the medium term, we continue to see Spain representing around 70% of group profits. So when I look at Tulp, I do not see a small transaction. I see a proven platform that gives us a foothold in a large and attractive market with limited capital at risk today and multiple avenues to expand earnings over time.

Thank you. And back to you, Laurie, so that we can begin the discussion with our analysts.

Thank you, Gloria. Thank you, Jacobo. We'll now move on to the live Q&A. [Operator Instructions]

Our first caller is Marta Sánchez from JPMorgan.

My first question is on volumes and margins. With your loan-to-deposit ratio now at 101%, how are you thinking about running the balance sheet from here? Does the priority on protecting deposit costs limit your capacity to grow loans? And linked to that, how should we think about NIM versus customer spread from here given that NIM went backwards again this quarter even as the customer spread continued to improve?

And my second question is on the Netherlands strategy. Can you give us like milestones about earnings contribution, loan growth? Are you just going to be doing mortgages there? Or would you consider launching a savings platform or expanding what you have there with -- through a savings platform? And do you think that growing that business will be consistent with keeping those efficiency gains that you've committed to over the next 3 years?

Marta, regarding the first question, our loan-to-deposit ratio is at 97% or deposit to loan at 103% these days. So this is more or less where we want to be. And I think that the answer is, of course, not, deposit cost is not a limitation for growth because our ambition is to keep growing in any geographies, in every segment in a profitable way.

So funding is not a restriction. We manage closely the loan to deposit, deposit to loan. We want to keep in the current similar levels in the following quarters. I think we've been running the bank in similar levels in the past quarter, and this is exactly the case.

Even though we think that, as I mentioned, the client margin is sustainable, we have quite a positive bias on the evolution of this 270 bps in the future. And coming back to your question also regarding the NIM, the NIM, we believe it's in a stable way since client margin are going to be resilient, sustainable with this positive bias since current forward rates are quite supportive of them -- of it. So we feel comfortable with where we are running in terms of deposit to loan and in terms of NIM.

Marta, I will answer you the second question. Well, I think as I've mentioned during the webcast, the strategy has not changed. So this is a small transaction. The idea is to start slow like we did, for instance, in Avantcard in the past. So to start financing mortgages, leveraging, obviously, on Tulp on the broker platform and probably using securitizations as they have a service for securitizations to fund these mortgages so that the business is fully comprised on itself.

In the future, well, in the future, obviously, the platform is a good platform also to build upon other businesses, like we've done in Avantcard, but for the moment, in the medium term, we are going to focus, as I've mentioned, in mortgages, in analyzing the market. And if we see that there are opportunities in certain businesses, we will see in the future.

You also asked if we -- if the 30% in 2030 is at risk, no, I mean, this is going to be a very light operation in terms of costs. So no, it shouldn't put at all at risk the 30% objective in cost to income.

Our next question comes from Ignacio Ulargui from BNP Paribas.

I have 2 questions, if I may. I mean, the first one is on the alternative investments, and then, effect of the success fees. I mean, could you just help us a bit better to model? How should we model about the success fees? Because it's -- I mean, the relevance of the alternative investment products is increasing within the group. And it looks like that we should be considering this as a bit more recurrent than what it could be perceived at this stage. So if you could help us to model a bit, how should we think about the success fees? What is the level that you charge on that -- on the asset of the products so that we can get a bit of a sense of how to consider them more recurrent?

And the second one is if you could elaborate on the competitive landscape in Spain, particularly on the lending side. You have been saying, Jacobo, we will focus on corporates, less so in mortgages. You could come back on if you have seen any rationalization on the competitive landscape in the mortgage market? And also wanted to get a bit of a sense of how do you see the Irish market given the PTSB transaction? Is this raising some incremental opportunities for you for growth there?

Ignacio, I'll take the first one on the alternative investment. Yes, I mean, definitely, that's why we wanted to dedicate some minutes to the alternative investment business because it's becoming a quite relevant business for us. It's growing. We have a strategic focus on this business. We believe there is a very large and relevant opportunity in the coming years. And therefore, we are putting a lot of effort. We are growing in assets under management in this type of funds.

Unfortunately, it is very, very difficult to predict when this transaction will deliver a success fee or not because the opportunities given by the market is not something that is controlled by ourselves. What I can tell you is that we are coming to a certain level of maturity where a large number of vehicles have reached a higher probability of being sold. And therefore, there is more and more probability of this type of recurrent success fee. So I know it is a little bit contradictory to a one-off can be recurrent. But basically, the message is that definitely, we should expect an increased number of this type of performance fee coming into the future.

But unfortunately, it's very, very difficult to share a sense of the amount, the volume, when, how, et cetera, because this business is run by this way. So unfortunately, I cannot help you in providing you a methodology or how to expect or how to input in your models the income from this business. And I think it's much more a matter of probability of an average volume, et cetera.

As you know, these assets under management funds in alternative investment bank provide us a quite long-term stable source of fees. But at the end of the day, we have to sell them to distribute to our -- to the members of these funds and to achieve a much better -- even very high profitability. So unfortunately, I cannot add any expectation or prediction to this income. But definitely, this is going to be much more recurrent than it's been in the past.

I will take the one about mortgages. Well, the first thing I have to say here is that you know that there is a process by the CNMC open at the moment, precisely that has to do with the prices of mortgages and competition. So I am not going to -- for respect to the process and also for prudence, I will not talk about mortgage prices at the moment. I can tell you -- what I can tell you is what is there. Well, the decision of actually reducing the production in Spain has been a decision of capital allocation to allocate capital in other businesses that were more profitable.

As you can see, the reduction rate is diminishing. And with time, I think by the end of the year, we will be probably in the quarter alone not been reducing the production in mortgages in Spain. Said that, in Ireland and in Portugal, we are doing pretty well. We are growing at 19% in the new production. And precisely, Ireland is doing particularly well.

PTSB, yes, PTSB, obviously, any corporate transaction that means restructuring, closure of branches, maybe also a restructuring in the workforce is always an opportunity for the competition, and we will take advantage of it, of course.

Our next question comes from Francisco Riquel from Alantra.

So the first question, I see the cost of deposits has fallen 1 basis point despite the rising interest rate environment. I wonder if you can please elaborate on how you are managing the cost of online deposits and the trade-off with volumes because the online deposits are falling EUR 3 billion Q-on-Q. And then, also comment on your expectation for the overall cost of deposits and deposit growth for the rest of '26. In particular, here, I also see that you started to print deposit numbers for Ireland for the first time. It's still a small figure, but I wonder if you can update on where are you on the rollout of your deposit franchise in Ireland.

And my second question is on fees. I see that you have raised the guidance growth from high single digit to low double digit, including the performance fee. But excluding this one-off fee, recurring fees are also growing 12% in Q2. So I wonder if you can update also on trends and guidance for the recurring fees, if you would be also raising the guidance as well without the performance fee.

I'll start with the second question. Yes, I mean, the increase in guidance is excluding this performance fee. So we believe that the underlying -- I would say, the traditional fees, the assets under management, brokerage, transactional fees are behaving a little bit better than expected. And that's why we decided to raise the guidance in fees. We think we're going to be in the double -- in the low double-digit range versus the high single-digit range. So we do not expect major changes in trends. So very positive trends in all these items in fees. And this is probably linked to your first question because we keep transforming our deposits into value-added type of products, and this cross-selling is quite valuable for us.

You mentioned the first question regarding the cost of deposit reducing by 1 basis point. Indeed, we think that we've reached the trough. Indeed, we think that the cost of deposit will be in the coming quarters a little bit higher, although betas will continue to go down. And as you know, marginal beta on whatever increase in ECB rates in the future, it will be transforming no more than 10%, 20% impact in terms of beta. So we believe that the cost of deposit is going to be a little bit higher, but basically under control and towards beta much lower.

We do expect in Ireland, we are growing -- we have already started. We are growing. We will -- the level of growth will be accelerating across the coming months. We are, as you know, building the brand, investing more and more in marketing, and this will take a little bit of time, but the speed is -- I mean, we are happy with it.

Regarding there is -- regarding the volumes and how are we managing the volumes, so we do -- as I mentioned before, we do track the liquidity ratio, the deposit to loan and the loan to deposit just to make sure that we stay at the levels where we want to stay. So we closed at around 103% deposit to loan or 97% loan to deposit. This is the range where we want to be, close to 100%. And for the time being, this is not a restriction for growth.

I must remind that the macro environment is positive. So there's still more and more deposits in the industry. So that means that there is, of course, different commercial strategies in the different banks, but the overall perspective is that the betas will continue to go down.

Our next question comes from Maks Mishyn from JB Capital.

Two from me, please. The first one is on the loan market. On the corporate loan segment, Bank of Spain data suggested that volumes have been quite subdued in April and May. And I was wondering if you could give us some color on what kind of outlook you foresee for the corporate segment in the second half? And any comments on the pipeline and type of demand you see would be super helpful.

And then the second question would be on the AUM growth. Could you please share with us how much of the growth came from net inflows in the quarter?

Yes, I will take that question. Well, first, about AUMs, it is around 45% is net inflows and the rest is a market effect. With respect to the Corporate Loan segment, we are seeing quite strong growth, particularly this quarter in Spain, also in Portugal, but this quarter has been particularly strong in Spain. I would say, obviously, international business is still one of the principal levers for growth, but also trade finance and the public sector, where we had a very low market share, and we are starting to be a little bit more active. For the second half of the year, we still see demand. We see no signs of asset quality deterioration. So we expect to grow at the end of the year by mid-single digits, so to be able to maintain the growth pace that we have so far.

Our next question comes from Alvaro Serrano from Morgan Stanley.

I guess my 2 questions are a bit of a follow-up. Jacobo, you mentioned on the performance fees. Thanks very much for the slide where you talk about the vintages. But can you give us a bit of detail on that performance fee in the quarter? And when we look at those vintages that you've laid out in the slide, obviously, you've given us by year. Can we make assumptions around typical sort of exit is 5 years, and based on the vintages that -- on the capital gain or the performance fee you've had in this quarter, can we make -- extrapolate anything on the potential vintages we might see materialize or monetize in outer years?

Is there anything -- if you could give us more detail on those EUR 23 million, maybe we can make our assumptions around extrapolating in future vintages or any color around that would be very helpful?

And the other follow-up is on deposit competition. And I know you've touched on it, but I'm just curious to understand, going forward, obviously, your digital deposit campaign has been pretty noisy over the last few quarters when it comes to sort of in these calls, we've discussed it at length. Going forward, now that you have Ireland sort of at a launch stage, do you think you're going to need to raise deposits through your digital sort of capabilities in Spain as you've had before or that's going to play an increasingly lower role? I'm thinking, obviously, that, that you're going to have to sort of grow deposits more than you've had this quarter in future quarters? Is that going to come from Ireland, Spain, less digital? That's -- a bit of color on that.

I'll take the first question. Listen, it is a bit difficult. But I will tell you that it has to do with the type of vehicle. There are vehicles, the shortest life vehicle is like 7 years, but they are more into the 10 years. So it depends on the type of assets. For instance, this comes from renewable energy. The vehicle was called Helia. I think you have all this information probably in the website -- in Bankinter Investment website. So you have all the vehicles that are alive, what the vintages are and what is -- what are the assets underneath.

We have a very good track record of management. But obviously, you have to take into account the assets, how much they have -- or how they have performed in the market, how well can we have done it better than the market and then the average life of the vehicle. Said that, yes, as you can see, the vintages are very diversified, and many of them are coming to the end of their lives. I don't know if I've answered that. Again, I don't have a more precise answer, but...

Yes, Alvaro, on the second one related to deposit conditions and digital campaigns, Ireland, et cetera, so I think each country has a different commercial strategy. So the Ireland is fully decided to keep increasing the level of deposits because at the end of the day, what we are aiming is to fund all their growth with their own funds. So 100% deposit to loan in whatever they grow. So if they grow EUR 1 billion per year, the target is that they are able to reach this same level of funds in the country. But it's independent from the commercial strategy that we have in Spain because in Spain, we do have these digital campaigns, we do salary accounts, we do different things. But from a commercial perspective in terms of bringing new clients on board and from a perspective of bringing new assets under management volumes that generate fees.

So as we always say, we do combine the vision of NII and fees altogether because we don't mind to be -- to do a commercial campaign, to bring new volumes to the bank and then transform them in something that will deliver stable fees in the coming years. So I don't think that -- I mean, we see the deposit condition from a global perspective. But in each country, they need to deliver their own commercial strategy in order to make sure that they can achieve their own self-funding of their business. And in parallel, we need the commercial activity that provides new client that brings new clients to the bank that will generate more transactional fees or assets under management fees.

Our next question comes from Carlos Peixoto from CaixaBank BPI.

The first question is actually still on deposits. And apologies if I missed anything since this was a very debated theme. But basically, what would be your expectation for deposit growth for the full year? Do you see pace of growth catching up to loan growth at some point?

Then, the second question would actually be on other provisions this quarter, it increased a bit versus the previous quarter and even on a year-on-year basis. Just wondering what drove that? And above all, what should we expect in this line going forward? Should this be the benchmark for upcoming quarters?

Thank you, Carlos. The expectation for growth in deposits, again, it's linked to the deposit-to-loan ratio or loan to deposit. So we are aiming to stay where we are, around 103%, 102% deposit to loan or 97%, 98% loan to deposit. So it doesn't mean that we are aiming to grow exactly the same proportion than the level of lending of loans. So as far as we keep similar levels of ratio, we are fine.

And in terms of the other provisions, basically, there's more related to seasonality, much more than any other things. So no major changes. As we said at the beginning, we are around 7, 8 basis points in terms of the cost, cost of other provisions, and we don't expect any changes on that front.

Our next question comes from Pablo de la Torre from RBC.

First, I had a few quick follow-ups, hopefully, on both Ireland and the Netherlands. So on Ireland, in terms of your product rollout for the next year or so, could you please specifically comment on any plans around the new savings and investments account initiative that is expected to launch in the second half of this year in the country and your plans around that?

Then, with respect to the Netherlands and your comments during the presentation of Spain being eventually 70% of the group in the long term, I think it was a year ago when Gloria mentioned a similar ambition to increase the contribution from all international businesses to around 1/3. So I guess my question is, if you think that after the acquisition in the Netherlands you can get to that level now or you would only expect to get there with further inorganic growth?

And then, I just had a quick question on something on Slide 26, where I believe you mentioned that roughly 50% of your new mortgage origination is now at variable rate, which is a change in the trend versus last year. I guess, if you could just elaborate on what's driving that and any short-term implications that we might expect?

Pablo, I'll take the first one and probably the third one. I mean, the rollout -- I mean, we have launched the term deposits, as you know. We are in the process of launching current accounts in terms of saving accounts, in terms of salary accounts in the second half of the year, okay? So related to the Savings and Investment Act that you are mentioning, so we are much more focused on deposits and this type of salary accounts and saving accounts. So we are still preparing the deliveries of the rollout for the 2027, where we might put a little bit more focus on loans. But this is more or less the information that I can share with you.

And related to the floating rate mortgages, around 50%, I think it's been a little bit stable. It is true that the new production of fixed rate mortgages has been higher in the past years than some years ago. So that means that there is a little bit more proportion of fixed rate mortgages in our book, and that's the reason why we have reached this 50% or so.

Yes. With respect to the contribution of other geographies that are not Spain, well, the first thing is that, yes, we maintain our ambition to have around 30% of our profits outside Spain, but Spain is still our core business. And the first thing is that it is like a moving target because Spain is already performing really, really well, which makes it -- which makes the growth in the other geographies more challenging. Anyway, both Ireland and Portugal are growing and even Luxembourg that is doing a pretty good performance this year. They are growing well above, and they account for around half of the delta in credit growth. So they are already contributing very heavily.

With Holland, we don't think -- I mean, obviously, it is going to help us in the short term to grow the contribution of the international markets, but I think it's more a medium-term goal rather than something that is going to happen immediately. It will also help. So probably volumes -- credit volumes will be greater than 50%, the one that comes from other markets. But it won't be the case in profits for the moment.

Our next question comes from Borja Ramirez from Citi.

I have 2, please. The first question would be on the deposit trends in -- I would like to ask if you could provide more details on the deposit volumes in Spain and in Portugal. I think you -- based on the previous quarters, you showed a very strong growth in deposits in Portugal and is increasingly becoming closer to become fully self-funded in Portugal. And then, I would like to ask if you could kindly provide the volumes of and cost of digital deposits in Q2.

And lastly, I think if you could provide details on the costs. I mean, on the cost growth, I can see that your other admin costs are showing quite better trends than inflation and same for personnel costs. So maybe there's some opportunity related to AI and also the simplification of the group.

Thank you, Borja. Related to the second question...

I'll answer you first and then you answer the other one. Listen, there are several things here. One contributor this year to the improvement in cost, both personnel and administration, has been the simplification of the group. Obviously, we -- with the integration of EVO Banco and also the recent integration of Bankinter Consumer Finance. So the simplification is important. But the most important thing is actually all the investments that we have been doing in technology, not only AI, but in technology in general to improve the productivity and the scalability of our business. So I would say it's the 2 things, both simplification and also all the investments that we are performing to improve the scalability of the business.

Borja, related to the first one, if I don't answer you properly, we'll talk later. But basically, again, we are trying to manage the liquidity ratio, deposit to loan and loan to deposit. So of course, as I mentioned before, each geography needs to look after these ratios and need to reach good level like you have mentioned in Portugal, which are almost fully self-funded. The digital account remains with similar costs as last quarter, so nothing has changed there.

And the commercial strategy are -- each -- are different in each country. So each country has different competitive landscape. They can reach or they can do campaigns on different type of products with different type of pricing. But at the end of the day, the aim is to continue growing in deposits, to continue funding the growth. We are very ambitious in the level of growth. Of course, we mentioned the mid-single digit. We're not planning to go farther this amount just again, because we target a specific type of client, profitable type of client, specific profile. And therefore, there's -- we are quite happy with this type of client, with this type of credit risk profile to keep growing mid-single digit. And behind that, the funds, we will target growth in order to fund this growth, but also in order to transform them in value-added products that will increase our level of fees.

Our next question comes from Ignacio Cerezo from UBS.

I've got just a follow-up actually on the digital accounts. If you can give us a little bit of information on whether the take-up of this most recent campaign has been different versus previous given the kind of proliferation, if you don't actually have similar products in the market? And also, if you're experiencing changes in the retention rate actually of your clients once they come off of the digital rate?

Ignacio, so -- I mean, we haven't noticed any major changes in the level of retention. I think the level of retention is -- in our opinion, is quite high. Of course, there is always a small proportion of these clients that are just targeting the remuneration. And as you know, this type of products where we're looking after is a relationship, not just basically remuneration.

So in terms of the proportion of clients that -- where we can -- are cross-selling, I think we are in the similar levels like where we mentioned last time. So we keep -- we are happy. As you know, that even this week, we have continued to launch a new campaign on these types of products. And I guess, this is -- I mean, we are happy with that. Just bear in mind that some -- a year ago or 2 years ago, everybody we were targeting term deposits, and we were changing the strategy just basically to have more flexibility in pricing. So we are fully convinced that this is the appropriate way to approach the market with some product, which is very flexible that provide us the opportunity to cross-sell more products.

And even if the first remuneration that we offer to the client might seem a little bit high, the reality is that the vast majority of the volumes stay, and the cost over time goes down, so a product which is much more flexible and with good retention levels.

Our next question comes from Miruna Chirea from Jefferies.

I just had one on Portugal, please. And I see that in retail banking, you are growing loans at 11% year-on-year. But in corporate and SME banking, you're only growing at 2%, whereas the system is growing at close to 6%. So just curious why that is and if you expect to accelerate growth in the corporate segment in Portugal?

And then maybe just another one quickly. I was wondering if you could provide us a bit more color on your rate sensitivity by market, so just to be able to understand which is the market in which you are most rate sensitive and least rate sensitive.

Okay. I will answer with regards to the growth in corporates in Portugal. Well, here, they have an effect that is completely extraordinary, which is the financing to Universo, which you know is a JV that we have with Sonae. Bankinter Portugal was funding part of Sonae -- sorry, Universo's balance sheet. And we have decided to change the strategy in Universo, and Universo is now going to securitize part of its balance sheet. So basically, it has to do with a one-off. With this one-off, the growth is pretty sound as it has been in the past, and we expect to end the year with greater growth than you've seen in this first half of the year.

Miruna, regarding your question about the sensitivity of each market, I would say that probably the sensitivity in Portugal and Spain is pretty similar. But again, I mean, we're talking about those clients which are sensitive, which tend to be the large corporations or the wealth -- private banking type of clients, which are always sensitive. And every changes in Euribor, changes at the ECB rates, just putting in the table a conversation about remuneration of the deposits. So in terms of sensitivity, I think that both markets tend to be very, very similar.

Ireland is probably a different story. Probably we don't have yet enough experience to answer properly that question, which is -- the only thing which is real is that the level of remuneration in the Irish market is much lower. There is excess liquidity. The majority of the clients tend to have their savings in their accounts. So probably I might say that they are a little bit less sensitive, but I'm sure that this over time will change.

And our next question comes from Sofie Peterzens from Goldman Sachs.

Here is Sofie from Goldman Sachs. When I had a look in your Excel file on the yield slide, I can see that the wholesale funds in the quarter, the average volumes increased by around EUR 3 billion this quarter quarter-on-quarter. How should I think about the wholesale funding going forward? Is it fair to assume that if you keep the loan-to-deposit ratio just below 100%, you might do a little bit more wholesale funding? And could you maybe also comment at what spreads the wholesale funding is done?

And then my second question would be around the costs. In the past, you have seen higher costs in the second half compared to the first half. Is it fair to assume that the cost growth in the second half will be similar to the cost growth we saw last year compared to the first half, which was like mid-single digits?

With regard with the increase in the balance sheet, it has occurred, obviously, in both sides. This is treasury -- this is a treasury operation. So it is -- basically, they are making temporary acquisitions, and then, temporary, how do you say, repos. And basically, what they have is -- what they get is a small margin on both operations. So most of the growth you've seen in the wholesale liabilities has to do with this type of transactions, which is not wholesale funding, that is funding the balance sheet. It is funding the temporary acquisition of certain assets. So the cost of wholesale funding, new wholesale funding that is actually, yes, funding the balance sheet. The last issue was around 90 bps or something like that, was something like that. We are only expecting to make wholesale issues for MREL. So probably one by the end of the year. So we will see, but we don't fund the balance sheet with wholesale funding.

Yes. Regarding your second question, I mean, I think we should see quite similar levels of cost in the second half of the year. But again, very stable amount quarter after quarter. So you shouldn't see major differences between quarters this year regarding costs.

Okay. And we just have time for one last question, and we'll take that from Hugo Cruz from KBW.

Just a couple of questions on Portugal. So first, on NII, there was a comment from one of your competitors yesterday talking about lower mortgage yields in Portugal. Are you seeing any changes in the market there or at least in your book there?

And second, on asset quality, your cost of risk and other provisions grew 28% year-on-year in the first half. Anything to worry about there in Portugal?

Hugo, regarding -- I mean, no, asset quality has not changed. It has more to do with the update of the macro variable that happens every -- at the beginning of every year. So last year, we have a release or quite limited release. This year, we have a limited contribution, and then, the difference seems a little bit higher. But basically, the asset quality is exactly the same. NPL ratio, as you've seen, are extremely low. So nothing to worry about it. And in terms of mortgages, I mean, Portuguese market is also a very competitive market, but nothing has really changed regarding the yields. So as far as I know, no major difference.

Okay. Thank you all for joining the call today. And on behalf of the entire Bankinter team, we thank you for your interest and your participation. If you have any further questions, we'll be available from the Investor Relations team to help you later in the day. Thank you very much, and have a great day.

Thank you very much, and have a great summer.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, and welcome to Bankinter's First Quarter 2026 Results Presentation. Financial statements were posted with market authorities earlier this morning, and all materials can be found on our corporate website. Please refer to the disclaimer in the presentation and note that this call is being recorded.

Today, we welcome our Chief Executive Officer, Gloria Ortiz; and our Chief Financial Officer, Jacobo Diaz. Gloria, over to you.

Thank you, Laurie. Let me start with the key highlights for the quarter, which confirm the strength of our business model, disciplined volume growth, continued margin improvement, a diversified and resilient income base and best-in-class efficiency and risk metrics. In volatile markets and in an environment of geopolitical uncertainty, that combination is not a nice to have. It is what protects earnings power through the cycle.

This quarter, we delivered it once again with growth that is both profitable and controlled, supported by high-quality balance sheet. First, customer volumes increased by 6.5% with customer lending up 5%, retail funds up 1% and assets under management growing by 17%. This is balanced growth. We are growing where we see attractive risk-adjusted returns, and we are doing so without compromising the quality of the franchise.

Second, on margins, we continue to demonstrate strong pricing discipline with customer margins at 2.68% and NIM at 1.76%. In other words, we are not buying growth. We are growing selectively with strict pricing discipline. Third, our income sources are increasingly more diversified and resilient. Net interest income grew by 5.5% and net fees by 8%, driving gross operating income growth of 6.5%.

Finally, operational excellence and balance sheet strength remain key defining features of Bankinter. We continue to improve our management ratios with the cost-to-income ratio declining towards 35%, NPL ratio below 2% and strong capital levels. All of this translates into profitability and value creation. Net profit reached EUR 291 million, up 7.6% with RoTE at 20%.

Let's now go into some detail behind these figures. Customer volumes grew across the franchise, increasing by EUR 14 billion year-on-year. Growth was led by lending and assets under management with deposits stable and improving in mix. Geographically, Spain remains the core growth engine, while Portugal and Ireland continue to add faster momentum off a smaller base.

On Page 7, you can see the quality of our core revenue growth. 1/3 of core revenue growth comes from fees, which now represent 26% of core revenues, a clear signal of higher-value client base and a more diversified business model. This is not cyclical growth. It reflects structurally more diversified core revenues and margin management that sustains net interest income even in shifting rate environments.

Page 8, key management ratios reinforce the quality of execution behind our results. Improving efficiency, strong asset quality and strengthening capital all confirm that growth is disciplined, risk is tightly controlled and profitability is sustainable through the cycle.

Let me now turn to milestones for the first half of the year -- first part of the year. Portugal is a clear success story for Bankinter. Since launching in 2016, we have delivered high-quality growth, doubling our client base, tripling business volumes and transforming efficiency from over 120% to the low 30s.

Profitability has scaled strongly on the back of a disciplined and diversified model built on a fully integrated operating platform with strong internal capabilities, reinforced by joint ventures and strategic alliances with partners such as Mapfre, Sonae and Generale. None of this would have been possible without the team.

So today, Bankinter Portugal has 884 employees, around 70% of whom have been with us since 2016, complemented by more than 150 new recruits from a younger generation who will help fuel the next phase of growth. Together, they underpin a genuinely scalable and sustainable model supported by digital transformation, applied AI and a clear focus on value creation.

On Page 10, earlier this month, we announced 2 complementary and clearly strategic corporate transactions to scale our business in alternative investments. First, we merged our alternative investment fund manager with premium partners to strengthen leadership in direct alternative investments, expand sector expertise and reinforce capabilities. As a second step, we will take a significant economic stake in Access Capital Partners, accelerating our Pan-European expansion through scale, specialization and greater product breadth across investment strategies and geographies.

Together, these 2 transactions directly enhance our value proposition while broadening access to alternative products where we already distribute today to more than 15,000 private banking and retail clients across Iberia. Overall, the strategic decision strengthen a high-value capital-light recurring fee franchise, deepening long-term client relationships.

And having just reviewed 10 years of growth, delivery and profitable success in Portugal, I have the strong convictions that Bankinter investment is on the same path, building scalable long-term growth and delivering strong value creation for our shareholders.

And before handing over to Jacobo, let me briefly frame my view of the current environment. While geopolitical uncertainty has increased in recent weeks, our assessment remains that this will not, in the near term, translate into a contraction in consumption in our core markets. What we are seeing is greater prudence rather than a deterioration in underlying demand supported by solid private sector fundamentals.

In this context, our geographic diversification across Spain, Portugal and Ireland continues to provide stability and quality to our earnings profile. And these markets are expected also to be less impacted and to perform better than the European average.

So this is all from my part, and it is now over to you, Jacobo. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Gloria, and good morning, everyone. Let me briefly summarize the income statement.

Net profit reached EUR 291 million, up 4% quarter-on-quarter and 8% year-on-year, driven by resilient net interest income, solid fees, disciplined cost control and lower provisions. I'll now walk through the key drivers behind each of these lines in more detail on the following pages.

Net interest income continues to progress well. NII reached EUR 571 million in the quarter, up 5.5% year-on-year and around 2% quarter-on-quarter on an adjusted day count basis. This is driven by volume growth and improving customer margins and special due to the improvement in deposit cost, which declined by 6 basis points during the quarter, supported by better deposit pricing and mix. On Page 14, let me take a minute to talk about our deposit strategy. Our approach to deposit growth remains disciplined and margin focused. We are actively managing the mix toward higher quality, more stable retail funds while maintaining tight pricing discipline. This focus has meant prioritizing the management of the cost of our deposit base rather than maximizing volumes.

During the quarter, we continued to optimize pricing, including actions on digital accounts and a review of deposit spreads for treasury and fixed term deposits. Retail funds declined by EUR 3 million due to a -- EUR 3 billion due to a seasonally softer first quarter as well as active margin management actions.

We continue to optimize our funding mix with a lower share of price-sensitive term deposits and a greater share of current accounts supported by our digital strategy. This translates into lower deposit beta, lower funding costs and improved margin resilience through the cycle. Consequently, average retail deposit cost for the quarter continued to decline, reaching 81 basis points.

At the same time, digital accounts continue to perform very strongly, increasing by almost EUR 2 billion during the quarter to over EUR 13 billion. This clearly demonstrates that our campaigns remain effective and customer engagement is strong even after the price reductions implemented on digital accounts during this quarter. This is fully consistent with the year-on-year trend shown on the slide, a structurally healthier and more stable retail funding mix with growth in current accounts and a continued reduction in term deposits.

On Page 15, turning to fees. This grew 8% year-on-year to EUR 203 million, driven by wealth management activity as well as a strong growth in insurance activity. Q4 '25 included some one-off items, so sequential comparability is not fully like-for-like. Our underlying mix is increasingly value-added and recurring, strengthening revenue resilience.

On Page 16, on other operating income and expenses, this also shows solid growth. Equity method, trading and dividend income increased by a combined 18% year-on-year, reflecting the continued diversification of revenues from business such as Bankinter investment, our insurance joint ventures as well as with our partnership with Sonae in Portugal through Universo. Overall, this further reinforces the quality, diversification and resilience of our earnings base.

On expenses, Bankinter is well known for its best-in-class efficiency levels, and we want to underline that the improvement we are delivering today is structural, recurring and still has room to improve. Business growth continues to be absorbed without creating structural pressure on the cost base. At the same time, efficiency is not being achieved by underinvesting. We continue to invest in people and technology with applied AI and simplification initiatives already delivering tangible productivity gains. This allow us to grow, invest and keep improving profitability at the same time.

And that leads directly to the next slide, which shows how we are maximizing the potential of AI. Our approach is very pragmatic and built on a dual framework. On the one hand, we have toned down CEO-driven priorities, applying AI across software development, commercial process and day-to-day operations. On the other hand, we are pursuing a bottom-up approach, equipping our employees with an increasingly accessible AI tool set embedded in their daily workflows.

Together, this supports higher productivity per employee in front and back offices and a lower cost to serve as volumes grow. In short, AI is not a future promise. It is already reinforcing cost efficiency and strengthening the scalability of our operating model and will continue to be a key driver of efficiency improvements in the coming years.

Next page on credit costs remains low and well controlled at 32 basis points in the quarter. Other provisions also performing well, down to 7 basis points. Profit before and after tax grew by 8% year-on-year with net profit at EUR 291 million, confirming the resilience of our profitability and our ability to create value through the cycle.

Asset quality remains strong and clearly differentiated. NPLs are low, coverage is prudent, and we continue to outperform the sector across all geographies with risk metrics stable, well controlled and with no signs of deterioration.

On Page 22, CET1 ratio closed at 12.96%, above our target range and well above minimum requirements. Strong earnings generation comfortably offsets risk-weighted assets growth, giving us flexibility to support organic growth and allocate capital to strategic opportunities like the alternative investment transaction that Gloria referred to in the introduction.

Next page. Customer volumes grew by 6%, supporting a 6% increase in gross operating income with well-diversified contribution across geographies. Loan growth remains disciplined and continues to outperform the market, especially in Portugal, Ireland and business banking in Spain. Regarding Spain, Spain continues to see strong revenue growth with pretax profits rising by 10%. While retail volumes softened this quarter due to seasonal effects and tighter mortgage pricing, corporate lending and off-balance sheet wealth management have remained resilient despite market volatility.

Regarding Portugal, Portugal marks, as it was mentioned, its 10th anniversary. Growth remains robust. Year-on-year movements in cost of risk largely reflect the one-off gain from an NPL sale last year in the first quarter. Excluding this effect, underlying performance remains solid and well controlled. Ireland also continues to deliver strong growth momentum with volumes up 20%, improving profitability and exceptional asset quality. The NPL ratio remains just at 0.3%.

On Page 26, corporate and SME banking continues to grow well above the sector. Lending in Spain is up 8% versus 3% for the market with very strong momentum in international business, where growth reached 17%.

In Page 29, in retail banking, our approach remains disciplined and margin focus on both the asset and liability sides of the balance sheet. New account activity continues to be robust with salary and digital account balances growing by close to 50% over the past year, reflecting solid customer acquisition and engagement.

New mortgage origination in Spain was lower during the quarter, reflecting pricing discipline in a tight margin environment with compressed risk-adjusted returns. This is consistent with our focus of allocating capital where returns are more attractive, such as in Portugal, where mortgage growth reached 8% and in Ireland, where it grew by 37%. Overall, retail banking continues to prioritize profitability and balance sheet quality over volume at any price.

Next page, despite Wealth Management, despite heightened market volatility driven by recent geopolitical tensions, our Wealth Management business continues to prove resilient. Customer wealth increased by EUR 18 billion, up 13% year-on-year, supported by net inflows and a growing high-quality client base. Even in volatile markets, our clients remain invested and continue to allocate savings, reflecting the strength of our franchise and the quality of our customer base with flows that remain resilient through the cycle even in periods of elevated uncertainty.

Next page, you can see the same trend with double-digit growth in both AUMs and AUCs, reinforcing the resilient and recurring nature of this business. Finally, let me take a moment to review our ambitions for the year. This first quarter of '26, we have delivered a solid quarter and results fully aligned with our previous guidance, following a disciplined execution with excellent quality of results supported by recurring sources of revenues.

The recovery of client margin level to close to 270 bps in Q1 and the improvement of efficiency levels towards our ambitions are the supportive levels of another successful year. Despite the ongoing uncertainty in the market environment, our expectations and guidance for '26 remain broadly unchanged and current levels of profitability are expected to be sustained in coming quarters. We will consider changes to our guidance in the next results presentation with more visibility of our impact on macro scenario of current geopolitical events.

We continue to anticipate stable volume growth in line with our initial assumptions while maintaining our disciplined and balanced approach to liquidity and risk. On the lending side, we expect volumes to grow at mid-single-digit rates, supported by a still positive macro environment for all geographies where we operate by a selective origination and a strong focus on risk-adjusted returns.

Deposit volumes will be actively managed to preserve comfortable liquidity ratios and balance sheet resilience. Deposit to loan above 100% or loan-to-deposit below 100% are levels that have been committed in the past and will continue to be in the future. Across the group, we expect growth trends to remain broadly consistent with '25 levels and year-on-year for the first quarter, with Portugal and Ireland continued to deliver a strong performance and Spain maintaining solid momentum, particularly in corporate banking.

With respect to NII, the continued volatility in interest rates means that visibility over the coming quarters remains still limited. However, current levels of forward curves anticipate potential rate increases that are supportive for NII in coming quarters. We continue to manage customer margin towards the 270 basis points or above.

In this context, rather than providing new guidance on NII levels, we remain focused on the levers that we can actively control, which are pricing discipline of the assets and liability, customer margin management and prudent balance sheet optimization. As a result, NII should continue to be driven primarily by volume evolution rather than by changes in pricing or margin assumptions. We expect quarter-on-quarter NII growth during the quarters in 2026.

Beyond NII, we remain confident in our ability to deliver high single-digit growth in fee income, supported by our diversified business model and strong customer engagement. Recent corporate transaction on the alternative investment front is a good example of our strategic focus on recurring growth on the wealth management business.

At the same time, we remain fully committed to delivering positive operating jaws in 2026 with a cost-to-income ratio expected to decline below 35% for the year, supported by simplification of our business organization and the combination of talent and technological investments.

In terms of asset quality, our outlook remains stable. We do not see any signs of deterioration in credit quality, and we expect the cost of risk to remain around current levels. In this quarter, we keep improving our capital position, maintaining strong levels of capital buffers and MREL ratios.

And finally, we expect return on tangible equity to remain above 20%, reflecting the underlying strength of our business model and supporting continued attractive value creation for shareholders.

Now Gloria, back to you, please.

Thank you, Jacobo. Well, this final slide captures the essence of this quarter, resilient performance and sustainable value creation. Even in volatile geopolitical and uncertain macro environments, our returns remain high and sustainable, supported by best-in-class efficiency, strong asset quality and solid capital ratios.

RoTE stands at 20%. Shareholder value continues to build with dividends up 25% year-on-year. This consistency is not cyclical. It reflects a deliberate way of running the bank, prudent risk management, capital allocation based on risk-adjusted returns and continued investment in efficiency and organic growth.

Together, these elements explain why our model delivers consistently and support our confidence in continuing to create sustainable value in 2026 and the years ahead.

Well, thank you, and it is back to you, Laurie, so that we can kick off the Q&A.

Thank you both, Jacobo and Gloria. We'll now initiate our live Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]

Our first caller we have is Maks Mishyn from JB Capital.

Two questions from me. The first one is on deposit growth. There was a notable slowdown in the quarter despite several digital campaigns that you've launched. I was wondering what was the reason and how you see the remainder of the year. And the second question is on your expectations for customer spreads for the remainder of the year. If you could just walk us through loan yields and deposit costs for the next quarters, that would be super useful.

Hello, Maks. I will answer you the first question, and then Jacobo will answer the second one regarding customer spreads. Well, listen, we have very -- the first thing is that we have very comfortable liquidity ratios, as you might have seen in the presentation. I think, in the annex, we have an LCR over 200%. And well, we have a loan-to-deposit ratio below 90%. We have given priority this quarter to actually accelerate the change in mix in our retail funds. You have seen there is quite marked decline in deposits.

So we have been reducing the duration of our deposits. And also giving greater weight to more atomized and less sensible deposits. So we feel very comfortable with the liquidity ratios we have. We will continue to work on the cost and sensibility of our deposits in future months. So we will obviously maintain, as Jacobo has said during his presentation, we will maintain our commitment to have a loan-to-deposit ratio below 100% and solid LCR ratios.

Good morning, Maks. Taking your question on the evolution of the customer spread. I guess, first of all, the commitment to reach an average this 270 bps or above client margin spread for the year. And the trends in the lending yields are, I would say, positive in the sense that with the current levels of rates and the expected level of rates, definitely, there is a tailwind in positive repricing.

First of all, in our -- in the corporate banking activity that tends to reprice faster. And then, of course, in the mortgage activity in the mortgage book that reprices with a little bit slower, but in a positive way. So in the sense of the lending yield, we should see a slight recovery or a slight growth over the following quarters. In the sense of the customer -- of the -- sorry, of the deposit cost, deposit cost, we've ended the quarter with 80, 81 basis points. We think this is a quite reasonable level where we can be.

There might be a little bit room still for reduction, but this volatility in rates might be a little bit challenging for at least the second half of the year. We need to wait and see the evolution of rates. But again, our target is to ensure levels of 270 bps of customer spread. We know that the lending yields are going to be supportive, and then we will manage proactively pricing in the deposit cost to ensure that we achieve this level or even above following or monitoring the current level of rates and the expected rates.

Our next question comes from Francisco Riquel from Alantra.

My first question is a follow-up on customer funds. I see that salary and online deposits are up EUR 9 billion year-on-year. Total deposits are up just EUR 1 billion. So that means probably strong outflows in corporate deposits. If you can please comment on the pricing actions, both in retail and in corporates.

And also, if you can also comment on net new money flows into wealth management because I don't see that outflows out of term deposits are retained within the bank. And my second question is if you can please elaborate more on the strategy and the return on investment that we should expect from your recent corporate transactions in alternative investments.

I will answer you the first question because probably it wasn't clear enough. Well, regarding net new money flows, there has been a very strong commercial activity, over EUR 1 billion transformation in -- from deposits to our loans. But obviously, you don't see that movement because the market has detracted more or less the same amount. So this is why there is no movement from December to March.

But as I've mentioned, the -- I don't have the exact figure here, but it's between EUR 1 billion and EUR 1.5 billion of net new money in funds in off-balance sheet funds. So -- and with respect, you're right, I mentioned that we are -- what we are doing -- you're right, there has been a drop or outflows in corporate funds because we are prioritizing smaller amount with less sensible to interest rates.

So basically, we are growing in payroll accounts. We are growing in SMEs in transactional accounts and also in medium-sized companies in transactional accounts. So we are giving, as I've mentioned, priority to these type of accounts that are transactional and therefore, less sensible to interest rates. But there has been an important outflow as well to off-balance sheet funds of around EUR 1 billion, EUR 1.5 billion. I think -- I hope I've answered.

[ Paco ], taking your second question, I'm not sure if it's -- I took the right way. But basically, I mean, definitely, this business of alternative investment fund is a business that generates a quite high and sustained return on equity. This is a quite attractive business from our perspective. We -- as we had mentioned in the presentation, we want to be the leader of alternative investment in Iberia.

Definitely, this will provide sustained high level of fees in the long term. We think there is a huge opportunity in Iberia to progress in the development of these type of products. We provide access to investment of real assets to Spanish and Portuguese people in terms of retail clients. Of course, this is not a product for everybody, but we think there is a huge evolution and a huge potential in this business.

Taking these strategic transactions, we are bringing all the know-how from our partners into the company, into the bank, and that provides us the full potential of building and developing new type of investment funds in the short, in the medium and the long term. And I think this is a huge opportunity to bring on board capabilities that the bank doesn't have today and to ensure that we can build and distribute this type of products.

We are, as you know, investing in renewables, in infrastructures, in spaces, in everything. And these 2 partners are one of the leaders in Europe in these type of assets, and that's why we are achieving transactions with them. I hope I have answered. If not, I will talk later.

Our next question comes from Alvaro Serrano from Morgan Stanley.

A couple of questions from me, please. Gloria, I think you said at the beginning that you're not expecting an impact on consumption, but you're seeing some prudence. Can you maybe talk us through what you saw -- what we've seen during March and maybe early April. I don't know if it's sort of deposits movements, appetite for loans or fees, maybe what you were referring to around that prudent statement?

And then the second question related is when I'm thinking about the potential updates or changes to guidance that you referred to Jacobo in Q2. Are we thinking about sort of fees impact? Or can you give us a sense of in an IFRS 9 world, what the sensitivity could be to provisions if, I don't know, 50 basis points change in GP or something along those lines that gives us a sense of direction.

Alvaro, when I'm saying prudence, actually, what I refer is that probably the consumption will continue to grow, but not at the same pace it has done. So it will not contribute in the same way to overall economic growth. We are not seeing really any signal in the reduction of the appetite for loans or for lending and not really any changes from last quarter.

But when I say prudence is what I see in the streets and what the statistics start to say. So I don't think there is any alarm sign or anything at all. And my prediction is that consumption will grow, but not at the same pace as last year, and therefore, the contribution in GDP growth will be a bit lower than it has been. But GDP growth will still be robust and I think enough, of course, to deliver our targets.

Good morning, Alvaro. Yes, just to clarify, I mean, we think that in 3 months, so many things have happened in terms of volatility in the market that it's probably not very prudent to change our guidance so soon. But my words were oriented to the rate environment and the volatility of rates that we are currently under expectations of potential interest rate rates in the coming months. And that is my comment about.

We are not expecting for the time being any changes in fees. I think I've been very clear in terms of efficiency and in terms of cost of risk. And obviously, my comment is related to the NII guidance and the possibility to have more tailwind in coming quarters if rates continue to be high or stay high for longer.

Our next question comes from Marta Sanchez Romero from JPMorgan.

So my question is on capital. You're building capital at a faster pace than expected. I understand there will be seasonality in Q2 and Q4. But could you give us a sense of the capital generation you expect after funding growth and a 50% ordinary dividend? And related to this, can you remind us about your capital allocation priorities? You will be spending roughly 20, 25 basis points on the olds acquisition in Q4, but still that leaves you space to do more things, considering that you want to stay at around 2.4%, 2.5% core equity Tier 1. So can you remind us on your priorities, any bolt-ons that you could consider, what areas, businesses, et cetera? And when, if any, time would you consider to repay surplus capital to shareholders?

Marta, yes, actually, there has been a very strong capital buildup this quarter because, as you know, traditionally, the first quarter has some seasonality in credit. Actually, we have done a much better quarter than we thought we would do taking into account the seasonality in the past. So we have done better in credit.

So regarding our -- and you are right, sorry, that we will have to allocate 25 basis points next quarter to this -- well, next quarter or when it is -- when we have the regulatory go ahead, which will be, I think, in the next quarters rather probably next or the other, the following.

Where are we allocating capital? We are allocating capital in the geographies where we see there are profitable opportunities like, for instance, in Ireland. As you can see, we continue to grow at double digit at 20%, 23%, 27% in mortgages. And we will continue to grow at that pace. In Portugal, we think we have opportunities to continue to grow also at double digit. And we think we will do better in corporates and enterprises than this quarter. So this means a little bit more capital allocation following quarters.

And in Spain, given the situation in mortgages, where we see that the prices continue to be below -- well, below cost, cost of risk and not only cost of credit risk, but also including everything that has to do with maturity mismatches and interest rate risk. We are actually investing heavily in enterprises and corporate banking, where you have seen we are growing at a very -- I mean, at a higher digit than usually.

Said that -- so we think that we will be -- we will have a comfortable management buffer. For the moment, we are not changing our dividend policy, which you know it is cash 50% of net profit. But don't forget that we have the main shareholders sitting at the Board of Directors. So if there is excess capital, obviously, we will give it back to our shareholders as we've done in the past. I mean, remember that Linea Directa deal was actually an extraordinary dividend. So well, this is more or less, I think I've answered. So I don't know if you want to add up anything, Jacobo? No. Okay.

I think you've been clear.

Our next question comes from Sofie Peterzens from Goldman Sachs.

Here is Sofie from Goldman Sachs. So my first question would be on the customer margin versus NIM. We've all been very focused on the customer margin, and we saw a significant improvement this quarter, but the NIM was very flat quarter-on-quarter. So could you just kind of discuss what the delta is and why the NIM didn't improve this quarter and how we should think about the NIM improvement going forward?

And related to that, could you also discuss your rate sensitivity and how we should think about kind of higher rate impact on your net interest income, but also on the customer margin and NIM? And then my second question would be on kind of cybersecurity. We have seen headlines about some of these AIs that can kind of penetrate banks very quickly. What are you doing to ensure that your cybersecurity is top notch?

Thank you, Sofie. I'm going to start with your last question in terms of cybersecurity. I know this is a hot topic with latest news about Claude and Mythos. Basically, here, what has fundamentally changed I mean, Mythos does not represent a fundamentally new category of risk, but there an acceleration of existing cyber threats through AI automation.

So what really changes is the speed, not the nature of the attack. So the point here is in order to react, it's just basically with the same tools, trying to be much more agile and much more quick in the execution of the responses. So basically, the bank, ourselves or other banks, what they need to do is to move faster in the responses. So from manual responses to automated responses, behavior-based defense to integrate AI into security operations, of course, maintain human side.

But basically, this is the type of reaction. And I think also the type of reaction is not just a bank on bank individual type of reaction. I think this topic needs to be faced in a much more global approach in approach of an industry, of a country of an entire Europe because all these threats, all these threats is not just a threat to the banks. It's just to the whole economy.

So basically, this AI threat just changed the tempo of the cyber risk, not these fundamentals. And the right response is just basically make sure that there is a coordinated automated defense from all the industries and countries and basically reinforce resilience. So the tool may be a new tool for the attackers, but it's also a new tool for the defenders. So I'm sure that everybody will accelerate this -- the use of this new technology to accelerate the execution of the defense.

Okay. So related to the sensitivity. Sensitivity, we are around 3% for an increase of 100 basis points. I think that was your question. And in terms of NIM, it's just basically an activity on -- it's trading activity that has increased the volumes of non-client activity has increased volumes in the asset side and in the liability side, and that has increased a little bit volumes and therefore, maintain the NIM at current levels.

But the most important thing for us is that the customer margin has been recovery, that the weight of the client activity in our balance sheet tends to be one of the highest, if not the highest. And for us, that is really, really important. So we -- as I mentioned before, we continue to expect quarter-on-quarter growth in NII for the coming quarters until the end of the year. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Ignacio Ulargui from BNP Paribas.

I just have 2 questions. One is on Ireland. If you could please give us a bit of an update on your views in the country? And what should be the opportunities that you could see now after the corporate transaction and corporate movement announced by Bawag last week? And also if you could update us on the deposit strategy and the capacity to gather deposits there, when we should see a pickup on deposit growth coming from Ireland. And the second topic, it's on the ALCO. I have seen that you have increased slightly the ALCO in the quarter. If you could just remind us a bit what will be the expected contribution for the year. And also, what would be the capacity to increase that from here onwards?

Ignacio, I will take your first question. In Ireland, we continue to see a lot of opportunity going forward. Basically, actually, there was very -- as I've always said, the competition, it's not as a competitive market as it is in Spain, let's say it this way. Actually, the margins, for instance, in mortgages are much higher. We are allocating more capital into this business. The recent transaction of Bawag acquiring PTSB actually is another great opportunity in the sense that PTSB needs a very heavy restructuring. And as we have seen in the past here in Spain and many other -- also in Portugal, when a bank is restructuring, clients are not served properly and therefore, the customer attrition is higher. So we will take advantage of that situation in the next months.

With regard to deposits, we have been testing deposits since I think it was late 2025. And with existing clients by invitation because we wanted to test because we have a completely new platform overall and obviously, a new product. And we also wanted to test all the marketing processes as well. We launched it to open market in February, I think, but also with very little or almost no, I would say, marketing expense.

We have around EUR 50 million in deposits at present. And what we want to test is the system at maturity of the of these deposits before we enter in the market in a mass mode. So this will be in the next -- because most of these deposits have been signed 3 or 6 months, max. So this will be in the coming quarter.

We have also -- now we are testing a simple current account, which have already constructed. And we will probably by the summer or maybe probably after the summer because the summer is not the right month to launch these things, we will launch it to the market. When we have current accounts, it is when we will launch a more aggressive deposit-taking value proposition. So for the moment, you will just expect these little amounts to grow by a great percentage, by a low amount because what we're doing is testing our systems and also our marketing processes.

Good morning, Ignacio. Regarding the ALCO portfolio, the ALCO portfolio, as you know, has a volume which is limited to 2.5x our equity. So since our equity keeps growing quarter after quarter, there is an opportunity to grow a little bit the ALCO portfolio. So just -- we don't expect to go far away or above that limit. So whatever increases in the ALCO portfolio, they should be expected to be some sort of limited.

The current yield is around 2.5%. Expectation is that we can continue to have this level or even a little bit higher during the coming quarters, but no basic changes in the structure of the type of assets that is in the ALCO portfolio.

Our next question comes from the Cecilia Romero from Barclays.

My first one is on asset quality and credit risk. I mean, SME lending has been an important growth engine for Bankinter. And now as macro uncertainty has increased, how do you see credit risk evolving within the SME book? And are there any particular sectors where you are becoming more cautious?

And my second question is on cost. I mean you have highlighted a medium-term ambition to move cost-to-income ratio towards 30% over the next 3 to 4 years, which I don't think is reflected in consensus. Is this still realistic given higher inflation environment? And what -- could you explain us what are the key levers that will get you there?

Cecilia, thank you for your question. For the moment, we are not seeing any warning signs in asset quality in any of the business segments actually. Nevertheless, the situation is such that, obviously, there could be some economic contraction -- I mean, some economic impact of all these geopolitical events that are happening. And therefore, we are being very cautious, and we've already told you, I think, in past webcast with consumer credit and particularly what we call open market, which is not within our franchise of clients banking there.

So there, we are being very, very cautious. We are actually reducing exposure. With respect to SMEs, you're right, it is also one of the weakest parts of the economy. And what we are doing is actually also being very cautious. In SMEs, below EUR 2 million of turnover. And we are focusing our growth in companies above EUR 30 million of turnover and also increasing a little bit our exposure to the public sector because actually, most of -- a lot of the investment in the economy is done by the public sector at present.

So just to wrap up, we don't see signs of asset quality deterioration, but we think it is wise to be prudent with consumer credit in open markets and also in smaller SMEs.

Regarding your second question about the cost-to-income ratio and the ambition, we definitely -- this is our ambition. And of course, we do expect that the combination of talent and technology allow us to provide year after year the enough space between the growth of income and the growth of cost to achieve this target. So we keep maintaining our positive jaws during the following years.

As you've seen in the P&L that in this quarter, there is more than 3 points of difference between the growth of income and the growth of the cost. So this is something that we believe we can sustain. Of course, investment in technology, but also the organizational simplicity is a key driver of this achievement. Organizational simplicity from a legal perspective, of course, but also the limited number of branches that we have and the enhancing of the digital business also is a great opportunity to achieve this.

You mentioned inflation. So we do expect some inflation, as you know, but some temporary inflation. We do not expect inflation to stay at current levels for a long period of time. So we can basically deal with it. And yes, I mean, it's our ambition, and we think it's absolutely achievable.

Moving to our next question from Carlos Peixoto from CaixaBank BPI.

A couple of questions from my side. One of them would be a follow-up on the interest rate sensitivity that you mentioned, so 3% for 100 basis points rise. I was just wondering, this is in a 12- or 24-month period? And maybe if you could give us just some highlights on the assumptions behind those -- that sensitivity.

Finally, particularly on deposit costs and all of that. And then the second question on the cost side as well. So this 3% increase that we saw in total cost in the first Q., should we take it as a reference for the full year? Do you think costs might accelerate throughout the year? Just a bit of a view on how you see that evolving?

With respect to costs, we are targeting lower increases year-on-year in 2020 -- this year. So you should expect a reduction of the pace of growth in costs. And I think you can make a point on your -- the rate sensitivity he's asking.

And regarding the rate sensitivity, yes, good question, just to clarify my comment. So the rate sensitivity is around, as I mentioned, 3% for 100 basis points increase in 12 months. So if we were to measure this in 24 months, it will be close to 7%.

Our next question comes from Borja Ramirez from Citi.

I have 2. Firstly, on the deposits. Could you please remind me of the -- regarding your digital account deposits, which were the volumes and the average cost as of March? And also on this point, could you update on the competitive dynamics in the digital deposit market in Spain. So for example, who -- where are you seeing greater push on this side?

And then my second question would be on rate sensitivity. If you could kindly provide a bit more details on the floating rate loans because I think you have a greater portion of floating rate loans. And within corporate and SME, I think given the fact that it's more focused on short-term working capital loans, I think it reprices faster than peers. So if you could kindly provide more details.

Borja, thank you for your question. And I will be answering the one regarding deposits. Well, the digital organization where you have all online deposits, whether they are the ones coming from EVO or the ones that we acquired with the digital organization the last year already has EUR 11.7 billion in deposits. The average cost of all of this EUR 11.7 billion is 1.39% and it's going down.

Competitive dynamics. Well, this quarter, we didn't launch a major campaign with high marketing costs. Obviously, we have always ongoing campaigns. So what we see are the higher competitors this quarter have been in the traditional banks, ING and probably, I would say, Sabadell also had a campaign this quarter. Also Openbank from Santander. And then you have the digital banks or the neobanks. But the major -- I would say, our major competition at present, the ones that take or to whom we take deposits are traditional banks.

Regarding the rate sensitivity, you mentioned the floating rates levels in credit in -- or sorry, in SMEs or corporate. Let me just clarify. I mean, of course, working capital facilities tend to be short-term funding or lending that, I mean, in 90 days might change the rates. So that has a faster repricing.

But in lending, for example, in SMEs, there is a strong level of real estate guarantees, which tends to be mortgages. So I would say that the corporate banking book has a faster repricing than the SME book. I guess that this is your question. Of course, we have the floating rate mortgages, as you know, and everything related to credits that tends to reprice faster. But for example, in the SME activity, we have at least almost 3/4 of the lending book tends to be guaranteed with real estate positions. And that means these are mortgages, and that means that it takes longer the repricing of the SME book.

Our next question comes from Pablo de la Torre from RBC Capital Markets.

The first one would be a bit of a follow-up on the alternative investment transaction. And sorry to go back to the topic, but it would actually be quite useful to understand a bit more of the kind of line-by-line financial impacts of the transaction that you expect in coming years, both on the revenue and the cost side.

And then the second one would be a bit of a follow-up as well on some comments that I believe Gloria made last quarter. I think, Gloria, you mentioned you were working with some of your insurance partners to improve or review some of your agreements at that time and see how you could impact -- how could you change your current agreements. So I just wanted to know if there had been any updates on that side of the business on insurance income.

Yes. I mean, actually, I -- we have signed, I would say, an agreement with Generale in Portugal for non-life insurance, and this will be fueling growth in insurance in Portugal in the next months. So yes, yes, we have made progress there. And we are working in Ireland. That is also one of our strategic lines. For the moment, we are not commercializing insurance, but also to be commercializing insurance to our clients in the future.

And in Spain, well, I think that we are doing quite well, growing, most of the growth that you have seen in the presentation, this 8% growth in insurance actually has to do most of it with the Spanish market.

Coming back to your question of alternative investment. We are pretty active on this type of business. So once all -- we get all the authorizations for the transactions that they might be finalized by the end of the year, what we do expect is to start generating around EUR 1 billion of new volumes every year in the future. As I mentioned before, this is a quite good business in terms of the level of fees and the stable level of volumes that we can manage.

So this is a great opportunity for us to build up a very good business. In fact, we just launched a new product in Spain called FIL, F-I-L, which is an alternative investment fund to reach retail type of clients that can be switched or moved from fund to fund. So it is a great opportunity. We have similar levels of ambitions with this new product that we've launched.

Again, this is a clear message of the focus that we want to put in this type of business in wealth management in general, but in this type of business, we think Bankinter has a great opportunity and plenty of new income to come with a great return on equity.

Thank you. Let's move to our last calls, and we have 3. First is from Ignacio Cerezo from UBS.

First one is if you can give us the stock of the treasury deposits at the end of Q1, the one which is embedded within your side deposits that are remunerated. And if we should be expecting additional reductions in coming quarters on this deposit book? And then the second one is a follow-up to Cecilia's question on costs. I mean, how do we need to think about kind of logical evolution of headcount levels alongside the implementation of AI in the bank? Are you expecting a gradual reduction of staff personnel levels? Or do you think actually you're going to have to be replacing people leaving with new hires?

Ignacio, with respect to treasury accounts, we have around EUR 11 billion. And this quarter, it has gone down by EUR 1 billion. We don't expect major reductions in this line around maybe 10% or something like that because we have already done quite of the work that needs to be done in that portfolio.

So -- and with the other thing with respect to headcount. Listen, we are increasing headcount in Ireland, and we are increasing headcount in Portugal. In Portugal, for 2 reasons. We were keeping the same commercial workforce that we had in 2016. So obviously, there is a moment if we want to continue to grow and maintain the quality levels, we need to enforce, we need to reinforce the team, the commercial team.

The second in Ireland, it's obvious. We are expanding our activities to be a full-fledged bank. So obviously, we need to increase also the headcount there. We are talking around 30 per country, where we are seeing that the headcount is stagnating is in Spain. We don't foresee reductions of headcount, but we don't see either increases as the business grows. So we think that much of the efficiency will come from -- in the Spanish operations.

Our next question comes from Hugo Cruz from CBW -- KBW, sorry.

I was wondering if you could just give a bit more color on your loan growth dynamics by product over the rest of the year. You're growing 5% year-on-year, but with the macro potential, we could see a slowdown even if you keep at mid-single digits. So if you could give a bit more color.

We keep our commitment to grow this mid-single digit around this 5-ish percent. And we think we still have opportunities to grow in profitable business lines, like I've mentioned, mortgages in Portugal, mortgages in Ireland, but also enterprises in Portugal and a lot in Spain in greater -- for companies over EUR 30 million turnover and also a bit more in the public sector.

And our last question comes from Britta Schmidt from Autonomous Research.

Just quickly coming back to the deposits. Could you give us the split of the deposits into corporate and retail where they are now and where they would be, for example, by year-end. And you mentioned that you're changing the mix to more atomized deposits. How do you think that would impact your deposit beta? It peaked at something more than 50%. If we were to see rate rises, do you think the deposit beta would be substantially lower, slightly lower. And even with these changes that we're seeing, do you still prefer to manage your NII sensitivity at around the 3% level for 12 months? Or could we see that improving?

Now regarding the beta, as you know, it depends how you make your calculations. Today, we are around 80 bps with the current level of 2% in ECB rates that gives you a ratio of around 40%. So we do estimate this 40% to keep going down in coming quarters. So whatever increase in rates that might happen, we estimate that no more than 10% of that increase in rate could be -- could potentially impact the cost of deposits. So beta is going to continue to go down over the next quarters.

With respect to the mix, I don't really have what the mix is between big corporates and because what we call retail includes also SMEs. So I don't have the exact figure. I think, yes...

We'll come...

We will come back to you later with. But yes, I mean, you can expect a reduction in bigger corporates and you can expect an increase in what we call retail or transactional accounts, which include, obviously, SMEs and also retail.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Gloria and Jacobo. And that now concludes our session. And on behalf of the entire Bankinter team, we thank you again for your interest and participation in the webcast. Everyone, please have a great day.

Thank you very much. Bye.

Bye.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our 2025 full year earnings call. Financial statements were posted with market authorities early this morning. All materials can also be found on our corporate website. Please refer to disclaimer in the presentation and note that this call is being recorded. And we welcome today our Chief Executive Officer, Gloria Ortiz, and Chief Financial Officer, Jacobo Diaz.

Gloria, over to you, please.

Thank you, Laurie, and thank you all for joining us in this 2025 full year results presentation. Since we are reporting the full year, I believe it's appropriate to start with a brief overview of the environment in which our business has operated to provide context for the figures that we are about to review.

2025 was the year of Donald Trump's return to the White House and even that has set the political tempo of the international calendar. Continuing the trend of previous years, the events in 2025 confirmed that the international landscape is moving towards an increasingly turbulent and fragmented scenario. Long-standing conflicts, such as Ukraine, remain unresolved despite failed attempts to reach an end to the war. In Gaza, the ceasefire came only after months of escalating violence. Meanwhile, the Franco-German Axis, the traditional engine of the European Union, has been weakened by deep domestic political crisis.

Without a doubt, tariff has been the most repeated word of the year. The imposition of tariffs on international trade has become the main diplomatic pressure tool of the Trump administration. The European Union, which for years has been a strategic partner of the United States, ultimately considered in trade negotiations and accepted a 15% tariff to maintain access to the U.S. markets.

Thus, the balance of 2025 confirms an international landscape that is increasingly fragmented and less predictable, where open conflicts tend to become chronic, and long-lasting political solutions are replaced by fragile truces or unbalanced agreements.

And indeed, what we have been observing in these first weeks of 2026, for example, in Venezuela or in the U.S. stance on Greenland, amongst others, confirms that this year will again be marked by geopolitical volatility just as 2025 was. At the same time, technology, led by artificial intelligence, continues to advance at a blistering pace, transforming operating and business models. And the banking sector is undoubtedly no exception. These are global trends shaping the broader environment.

But if we focus on the countries in which we operate, it is worth noting that the 3 economies, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, are among the most dynamic in the Eurozone and have become the new growth locomotives of the union. In fact, the Eurozone in 2020 -- in fact, in the Eurozone in 2025 inflation, which had surged sharply after the pandemic and the Ukraine war, moderated. And as a result, the ECB accelerated interest rate cuts, especially during the first half of the year.

With inflation under control at the European Central Bank's target level, benchmark rates stabilized at 2%, and no further cuts are expected in the short term. As a result, in 2025, the ECB reference rate averaged 2.2%, that is 1.4 percentage points lower than in 2024, while the 12-month Euribor fell by an average of 1.05%.

Turning to financial markets. It's notable that despite escalating conflicts and increased political polarization, market performance remained robust. The IBEX 35 achieved a record increase of 50%. German equities rose by 23%, and the NASDAQ advanced by 19%. In this environment of geopolitical uncertainty and significantly lower interest rates compared to the previous year, we have delivered in 2025, very strong results, once again, record breaking. These results are built on solid foundations and driven by recurring client commercial activity. Moreover, in 2025, we executed major strategic projects that will underpin the bank's future growth such as the integration of EVO Banco and Avant Money, which is now Bankinter Ireland, a branch of Bankinter just like Portugal.

Of course, before moving on, I want to express my thanks to all Bankinter Group employees for their dedication, effort and commitment because they are the true architects of the results that we present today. The results we present today are very satisfactory, driven by intense commercial activity that brings us to report a net profit of EUR 1,090 million in 2025, representing 14% growth over the previous year.

2025 was marked by diversified growth, both geographically and by business line. Overall, we grew 9% in total business volume, 5% in lending, 6% in customer funds and delivered a strong double-digit growth, 19%, in off-balance sheet products.

Despite the sharp decline in interest rates, we managed to limit the falling interest income to 1.8% in 2025. And on a year-over-year basis, the inflection point was reached in the first quarter. From that point onward, net interest income grew quarter after quarter, thanks to credit growth and margin management.

Customer spreads averaged 2.68% for the year with the overall NIM at 1.78%. Fee income from services had an exceptional year, growing 11%, which in nominal terms, almost doubled the reduction in interest income. This allowed us to grow gross margin by 5%, and I think it is important to note that the strong performance in fee income is due to the significant growth in our balance sheet funds and not to any increases in customer fees.

All this growth has been achieved while keeping our risk appetite unchanged, improving the asset quality of our balance sheet, reflected in a nonperforming loan ratio below 2%, specifically 1.94%. Another key element of our business model is efficiency at 36%, indeed the best efficiency level across the industry. These 3 pilots, the diversified growth, asset quality and efficiency, are the foundation of our business profitability, which reached ROTE of 20%.

As I have been commenting in previous quarters, commercial activity with clients has been very strong. Total customer business volume stands at EUR 241 billion, EUR 20 billion more than in 2024, representing 9% growth in the year or a compound annual growth rate of 8%, an increase of EUR 80 billion since 2020. This volume breaks down into EUR 84 billion in lending, representing 5% growth versus 2024 at year-end.

Customer funds reached EUR 88 billion, EUR 5 billion more than a year ago, and we now manage EUR 69 billion in assets under management, 19% more than at the end of 2024. We have more than doubled the balance recorded at the end of 2020 with a compound annual growth rate of 17%. All this growth is organic and diversified with every geography contributing and outperforming the market.

Our diversified customer business volume growth is what enables us to consistently strengthen revenue streams. Core revenue fees and interest income reached EUR 3,032 billion, a compound annual growth rate of 12% and a record for the series, exceeding 2024 by 1% despite the headwind of lower interest rates. We achieved this by limiting the decline in interest income to 1.8% through volume and margin management and through the excellent performance of fee income, which with an 11% growth rate more than offset the reduction in net interest income.

The drivers of fee income are the strong growth in off-balance sheet funds, the increasing activity of Bankinter investment across all its business lines and the positive performance of the economies in which we operate.

Regarding interest income, I would like to highlight its upward trend throughout the year. It bottomed out in the first quarter of 2025. And from that point on, revenues increased quarter after quarter. By the fourth quarter, we already grew on a year-on-year basis by 4%. So the outlook continues to be more positive, especially with the forward rate current scenario for 2024 -- 2026.

In summary, sustained growth, asset quality and efficiency are what allows us, once again, to deliver results that surpass our own records, exceeding EUR 1 billion and representing 14% growth versus 2024, tripling our results over a 5-year period. Our ROTE now at 20% is also the highest in the entire series.

Before I hand over to Jacobo to review in further detail the financial results, I wanted to quickly showcase one commercial strategy that was quite successful in 2025. In 2025, the 100% digital new client acquisition is what I'm referring to. Since the EVO integration, we have improved our digital customer experience with the use of AI in commercial and marketing processes.

Our deposit gathering capabilities are now stronger, more granular and flexible. We increased customer funds in this channel by 64% in the year, now reaching EUR 12 billion, close to 14% of our total customer deposit base. New customer acquisition trends have doubled since 2022, and the digital channel now represents more than half of the new client acquisition in 2025.

From an industry perspective, our digital offering is -- not only allows us to compete effectively with new entrants, but gives us a clear competitive advantage. Customers benefit from a full multichannel ecosystem, digital branches, contact center and also private banking network, which enhances loyalty and broadens upsell opportunities. In the second half of 2025, the strong growth of this channel generated some short-term pressure on deposit cost. However, looking ahead, our digital strategy and strengthened deposit gathering capabilities create meaningful upside supported by lower acquisition and servicing costs. Overall, our digital franchise has become a scalable and cost-efficient acquisition engine that strengthens loyalty, supports margin resilience and accelerates fee growth, a competitive moat that becomes more powerful each quarter.

Jacobo, now over to you.

Thank you very much, Gloria, and good morning, everybody. 2025 marks yet another year of increased revenues and profitability. In operating income, we have grown by 5% with increased volumes, continued strong fee growth and effective margin management. Operating costs were more balanced this year over the quarters with annual cost growth growing below revenue growth to end the year within guidance, confirming positive operating jaws another year. Cost of risk and related provisions declined by more than 15%, reflecting a continued positive trend in risk management. And net profit increased by 14.4% to well surpass our initial goal of EUR 1 billion in 2025.

Onto NII and customer margins on the next page. NII contributed to EUR 2,237 million this year, slightly below our initial target. Asset yields for the year averaged 365 basis points and remained quite stable this quarter at 3.48%, down only 1 basis points from the third quarter given the good volume growth, especially in corporate and uptick in short-term interest rate. This helps soften the impact of a slight increase of 3 bps in quarterly deposit costs due to the same uptick in short-term rates as well as a successful commercial strategy that Gloria just mentioned regarding digital account deposit gathering.

Customer margins for the year averaged 268 basis points, very near to our 270 longer-term target. We believe Q4 '25 mark a low point, as the downward repricing of digital account deposit is underway in Q1 '26. Therefore, we expect customer margins to recover moving forward. NIM averaged 178 basis points for the year as the noncustomer interest income improved in the quarter, leading to an increase of NIM of 4 basis points in Q4. Regarding the ALCO portfolio, this has been achieved through increased ALCO balances that you can see on Page 13 as well as reduced wholesale funding costs.

Moving on to fees. Fees continued to deliver sequential increases each year, reaching EUR 795 million, up 11% versus 24%, reaching a double-digit compound annual growth rate of 10%. This sustained growth momentum is mainly attributable to the strong growth volume or strong volume growth in asset management, custody and brokerage services.

Moving on to Page 15. Equity method and trading dividend income lines also up with an impressive 21% on a year-on-year basis. The diversification of sources of revenue is well represented here as a result of our business investment in the past. For example, Bankinter investment that we will look later in the presentation, insurance JVs as well with our JV in Portugal with Sonae called Universo. We also confirm the banking tax will have no impact in 2025 and expect this to be the case for '26 and '27.

Moving into the contribution of gross operating income, there's been a very strong contribution from each geography in gross operating income, demonstrating increased diversification with Portugal and Ireland, growing from an 11% contribution to gross income in '22 up to 16% in '25.

Moving to the expenses on page 17. We have contained total operating cost growth to 4%, notably with flat general expenses due to the tangible impact we are achieving through our IT and AI initiatives as well as with the EVO integration. Efficiency ratio improved to 36.1% this year, demonstrating our commitment to delivering positive operating jaws now and in the future.

On Page 18, PPP more than doubled over a 5-year period to reach EUR 1,947 million in '25.

Moving on, we see improvement in credit and other provisions. Significant decrease in cost of risk down to 33 basis points from 39 basis points in '24 with loan loss provision volumes now below those even of the ones in '23. Other provisions also performing well, down to 8 basis points for the year with no signs of deterioration in the market of -- in our portfolio, and our disciplined approach to risk management, we remain optimistic to maintain current levels for the coming quarters with potentially some upside risk.

Next page, net profit reached once again historical levels at EUR 1,090 million, an exceptional increase of 14.4% in the year, maintaining similar growth rates seen in '24 even with the headwinds faced in interest rate during the year.

Moving into the credit and asset quality indicators, as you can see, they continue to improve. Risk quality measure in terms of the nonperforming loan ratio has improved significantly this year breaking below 2% to reach 1.94%. The coverage ratio remains very solid at 68%, substantially higher than in the 2020. By geographies, Spain, down to 2.1%; Portugal at 1.4%; and Ireland, stable, 0.3%, all well below sector average consistently over time.

Moving into capital. Our CET1 ratio ended the year at 12.72% and well above the minimum requirements of 8.36%, leaving an ample capital buffer of 4.4% as well as adequate MREL and leverage ratios. Main movements in the year related to retained earnings contributing to a total of 111 basis points, capital consumption of 51 basis points in RWAs and 35 basis points in operational and market risk. The implementation of the countercyclical buffer in Spain has resulted in a 41 basis point increase in minimum requirements.

Moving into Page 24. Commercial activity, volumes and profit trends remain not only strong, but with a greater diversification each year across geographies. Customer volumes up 8% in Spain, 15% in Portugal and 23% in Ireland. Each region contributed at increasing levels to the profit of the bank as well we see on the following slide.

Within Spain, loan growth this year, up 3% with a strong performance in the business lending segment growing 6%. I consider this satisfactory growth rate, especially when considering the intense competitive margin dynamics in Spain as well as our reduced appetite for open market consumer lending in Spain in 2025.

Retail deposits continued to demonstrate solid and balanced growth, increasing by 5%, fueled by the successful digital campaigns we mentioned a little bit earlier. Stellar performance in Wealth Management, reflected by an 18% increase in assets under management balances as well as a 19% increase in assets under custody. Profit before tax, up 14%, reflecting solid contribution from our core Spanish business.

Moving into Portugal, a continued momentum in lending activity across both business segments, up 9% in total with a strong deposit gathering growing 8% as well as a substantial increase in wealth management and custody balances, rising 28% on a year-on-year basis. Cost-to-income ratio at a very efficient low level of 33% even with increased investment in IT. Profit before tax, up 7% to EUR 210 million or 14% of total contribution to the group.

Moving into Ireland. 2025 marked the year for our Irish business to convert into a branch of Bankinter, allowing for increased upside risk in terms of volume potential and efficiencies. We launched deposit in Q4, albeit with volumes still at marginal levels, definitively more to come in this space during 2026, as we begin to scale up deposit campaigns this quarter. Asset market dynamics and our Bankinter style commercial differentiation supported a 27% growth rate in the mortgage book in '25, with improved trends seen in the second half of the year. Consumer finance also growing at 11%. Profit before tax contribution reaching EUR 46 million, up 13% this year with important improvements in the cost-to-income ratio down to 44% from 48% last year.

Now moving into the corporate and SME banking business. Business lending continues to deliver a strong performance, up 6% this year, consistently increasing market share year after year. One key growth catalyst continues to be our international business segment that has doubled loan volumes over a 5-year period, now reaching EUR 11 billion, representing 30% of the business lending book currently. This segment is also a strong recurring contributor to fee income from services. We also see increased activity and upside risk from other growth catalysts like our new ESG client solution across loan and servicing income products. For example, the loan advances we provide for energy certificates, where we were the first to launch in the market in 2025.

Additionally, we are expanding substantially our Bankinter investment business that I will detail more in the next couple of slides. Bankinter investment has doubled income contribution to the group over the past 5 years with currently 31 alternative investment vehicles and associated vintages well distributed over the year since 2017. More than 15,000 Iberian Bankinter customers now invest in real assets. This franchise has been a key source for the increased fee income to the group, reaching a 12% compound annual growth rate with upside risk potential for the future.

On the next page, you can see the strong diversification of the different investment strategy for the vehicles across many sectors and countries with more than 360 different underlying assets in the portfolio.

Moving on now to review the Retail Banking business. Retail banking asset and deposit trends remained strong with increased core salary account balances up by 7%. New mortgage origination, up 10% year-on-year, with solid market shares of new production across Spain, Portugal and Ireland. Our mortgage back book is growing steadily at 5% annually despite rising competition in 2025.

The Wealth Management business, on Page 32, shows our high-quality affluent client base that continues to drive exceptional incremental wealth volumes, up EUR 21 billion this year, a 16% increase on a year-on-year basis, of which half of it is new money to the bank. When excluding the market effect, the net new money has reached the EUR 10 billion level milestone, well above our historical range between EUR 5 billion to EUR 7 billion.

Off-balance sheet, volumes under management and custody on Page 33 ended the year at EUR 156 billion, up EUR 25 billion, or 19%, increasing significantly with the markets and net new inflows in all categories. With the exception of fixed income security, we have provided additional details regarding commercial activity and trends for those key fee income growth catalysts in the annex, no doubt a key driver of continued fee growth for the future.

Now, let me just spend a couple of minutes sharing our ambitions and targets for 2026 before I hand back to Gloria. We expect -- the first one, we expect solid macro outlook for all the regions where we are operating. Therefore, we expect growth across all segments and geographies, focus on our targeted type of customer and insurance and ensuring a disciplined risk-return approach for asset origination.

Volumes are expected to grow at similar levels than in '25 and previous years. This means that lending volumes at mid-single-digit growth with deposit volumes targeting to keep our liquidity ratio stable, that is above 100% in terms of deposit to loan or below 100% in terms of loan to deposit. All geographies and business segments are expected to grow at similar levels with Portugal and Ireland keeping their successful track record, and Spain, keeping strong volumes in the corporate and retail businesses.

Regarding NII, with the current Euribor 12 months rate outlook in '26 stable around current levels or slightly increasing towards the end of the year and next -- and following years, we expect customer average margin to recover 270 bps, our initial target. And therefore, we target in 2026 overall similar levels of client margins and NIM that the ones we saw in 2025. With residual negative repricing for mortgages and a downward repricing of our digital accounts in Q1, we expect minimal margin compression in the first half '26 with an upside bias to possibly reach a stable asset yields by the end of Q1 and beginning of Q2.

Given these dynamics, we would expect NII for the entire 2026 to increase in correlation with volume growth. For fee growth, we target high single digit for the year, supported by increasing volumes from assets under management and assets under custody as well as from increased transactionality from each of the geographies, which are strongly correlated with the economic growth of each of them.

With our strict cost allocation and management, while keeping strong IT investment around 10% of our gross income, efficiency remains one of our pillar or our main pillars, and we are committed to delivering positive operating jaws, again, in 2026, reducing cost-to-income levels below 35% for the year.

In terms of credit quality, we have a stable outlook for cost of risk for the year around current levels of 33 basis points, albeit with a positive bias. And ROTE is expected to stay above 20%, ensuring attractive shareholder value creation.

In summary, we expect 2026 to be another year of consistent growth in volumes and profitability reaching new records in volumes, gross income, efficiency, net income, and of course, profitability.

Gloria, back to you, please.

Thank you, Jacobo. Thank you for sharing our financial ambitions. In terms of our management priorities, all of these are well-integrated and will contribute to our financial goals with high-quality volume growth, a greater diversification of income from servicing fees and geographies. We will continue to invest in technology to achieve tangible benefits from our AI initiatives, driving both competitive differentiation and operational efficiencies. The outcome will undoubtedly result in a strong profitability and sustained improvement in shareholder returns. The key driver for this success centers around our clients and our employees.

2025 is a pivotal year for artificial intelligence, and we are committed to embedding AI tools and culture throughout the group. I will oversee project selection to ensure we achieve tangible results. Our program called AI First is designed to enhance our competitive advantage by integrating AI into all our customer-facing acquisition and service applications. We are committed to deploying personal productivity tools company-wide aiming to achieve 5% improvement in productivity over the medium term.

Regarding process efficiency, ongoing initiatives across back, middle and front office focused on integrating AI gen applications into our banking operations. Coupled with leveraging AI tools for software development, we anticipate a 10% increase in capacity equivalent to approximately 1 million hours over the next few years. However, AI for Bankinter is not just a plan, it is a reality with substantial progress achieved in 2025.

On Page 37, you can see the measurable improvements in productivity and efficiency thanks to the bank's digital transformation and the pragmatic and effective use of artificial intelligence in operational and commercial processes. We remain committed to investing 10% of our gross income in technology.

On the lower left-hand side of the page, we have highlighted several examples of our use of AI in 2025, which have contributed to enhanced employee productivity. With EUR 36 million managed per employee, we compare very favorably to our peers with EUR 21 million per employee. And if we measure efficiency in terms of operating cost per billion managed, we also stand out. We allocate EUR 4.6 million of expenses per EUR 1 billion managed for our clients while our competitors require EUR 6.5 million for the same volume. Naturally, this is reflected in the efficiency ratio, which has improved year after year and now stands at 36%.

Finally, I would like to highlight that all these gains in efficiency and productivity are not being achieved at the expense of service quality. In fact, service quality, measured in NPS, has improved by nearly 10 points since 2020 and now stands at 51%.

Turning to the financial page -- the final page of our presentation. We report a ROTE of 20%, 100 bps above 2024, together with continued value creation for shareholders through both dividends and growth in book value. We are presenting another year of historical results driven by recurring customer activity and the disciplined execution of a long-term strategy that preserves our risk appetite while strengthening the balance sheet as reflected in the ongoing improvement of our NPL ratio.

We continue to invest in initiatives that support business growth while at the same time improving efficiency. The drivers behind our performance, diversified growth, disciplined pricing, strong fee income engines and best-in-class efficiency are structural and provide strong visibility into continued profitable growth.

In conclusion, 2025 demonstrated the resilience and strength of our business model even in a year of declining rates, geopolitical volatility and intense competition. Bankinter expanded volumes, protected margins and delivered record profitability. It was not just a record year, but a clear demonstration of the strength of our franchise, the quality of our growth and our ability to generate attractive returns and create long-term value for our shareholders.

Back to you, Laurie.

Thank you, Gloria, and thank you, Jacobo. We'll now open up for questions. [Operator Instructions] Our first caller is Maks Mishyn from JB Capital.

Two questions from my side. The first one is on the competitive environment in lending in Spain. Your retail book is growing below the sector, and my question is whether it is intentional, why and when can this change?

And the second question is just a clarification on the cost of risk guidance. You mentioned upside risks. What has to happen for them to materialize? And what kind of upside risk are we talking about? Could you please quantify them a bit more?

I will answer you the first question, regarding competitive environment in Spain. Listen, I actually -- I think I pointed it out last quarter. We are seeing some irrational behaviors, particularly in the mortgage business, although also in other segments, but mainly, I would say, in the mortgage business. And you will understand it very, very quickly. I mean, there are offers, and I'm not talking to private banking clients. I'm talking to very standard clients, where they can get a 30-year mortgage at 2.20% for 30 years fixed, I'm talking.

And as you know, the swap curve for the 30-year is over 3%. So basically, it's like selling a mortgage with Euribor minus 80 or even more. That is absolutely rational because even if that rate has a positive margin this year, obviously, you are building a portfolio that is not sustainable. And in 30 years, rates can do many things. So we are not into that world. We are not going to sell mortgages at 2.20% because we want to build a sustainable portfolio in any environment -- well, probably not in any environment, but in most of the environments, and we are not going to enter in that war. So we are producing with our clients, and we are competing in those clients where we think they deserve better rates. But we are not going to enter in that war.

Maks, this is Jacobo. I'm going to answer your second question, and maybe there's a misunderstanding. The cost of risk that we're expecting for 2016 is quite similar to the current levels that we've seen here at the end of the year, which is around 30 bps -- 33 basis points. I think the word upside risk means -- it's meant in a positive way. That means that it could be even a little bit lower, not a little bit higher. So it's the way we can interpret that word. I think we think that we are under a good macro outlook for Spain, Portugal and Ireland.

As you know, we are reducing our exposure to the consumer finance business with non-Bankinter client. We are reinforcing of being more prudent in all our activity. So the sense of the sentence that I mentioned of the upside risk doesn't mean this might go up in terms of cost of risk. I was trying to say that it can be even better than the current levels of cost of risk. I hope that I have clarified my point, and I expect that this was your question.

Our next question comes from Francisco Riquel in Alantra. Francisco, go ahead.

Yes. So my first question is I wanted to ask about your guidance of mid-single-digit growth in loans, if you can, please share indications by country. It seems to me that your guidance could be conservative if just the sector in Spain grows 4%, 5% in '26, which is nominal GDP growth. So you have grown a bit less than the sector in Spain. You were commenting that. So I wonder if you are willing to continue losing market share, particularly in retail mortgages in '26 or if you -- we could have upside risk to your volume guidance overall?

And then my second question is regarding the guidance for cost inflation. So you have given cost-to-income reducing 1 percentage points, which means 2 percentage points cost inflation below revenue growth, meaning also cost inflation lower than in '25, but you need to invest in Ireland to become a full universal bank, also in Portugal. So that probably means very little cost inflation in Spain. So if you can, please elaborate on the cost guidance, the longer-term ambitions that you have presented for 2030, how do you plan to leverage technology to achieve that? I see other banks are still investing in technology. So if you can please elaborate.

Thank you, Paco, for your question. I will try to answer the last question and maybe give some indications about the first one, but Jacobo will complete what I say. Okay. With respect to costs, obviously, technology is going to help, but this is not -- it's not a miracle. So we are not going to attain obviously, all that efficiency only with technology. I remind you that last year, we integrated EVO Banco. This year, 2025, we only had synergies for the half of the year. Next year, we will have the synergies of this operation for the full year.

On the other hand, we just announced, I think, in December that we were absorbing consumer finance -- Bankinter consumer finance into Bankinter. And obviously, this means a simplification of the corporate structure that also brings some synergies. So it's a question of the traditional cost management technology and also all the simplification that we are undergoing in the corporate structure.

And with respect to lending growth, listen, if the competitive dynamics continue to be in the mortgages -- in retail mortgages, the ones that we have seen during 2025, we are happy to be prudent and not to grow at the same pace as the market grows. But I hope because it doesn't make any sense that the market reacts and that we come back to a logic dynamic in pricing.

Another thing where we are also reducing our growth rates is in everything that has to do with consumer credit in the open market. This means outside Bankinter clients in Spain because we are seeing already, as you can -- you know, there have been many announcements with regards to -- with regard to the new law, and well, there are a lot of problems in this -- I would say, a lot of compliance risks in this business.

Do you want to complement? No?

Yes, yes. Paco, good morning. No, no, I think in addition to -- I mean, basically, what Gloria is trying to say is that we are sticking to the same type of client or target of client that we've been sticking in the past, even with this exclusion of the consumer finance business in the open market activity. So this is one of the reason. We are targeting selective origination of lending. And even though we are able to keep the similar level of growth even if the market might grow a little bit more. But we prefer and we prioritize a good return and risk combination instead of volumes.

Ireland is going to grow, again, quite strongly, double digit. Portugal is going to grow again strongly, double digit. And Spain behavior is going to be very positive. But always, we are prioritizing the combination of risk and return.

Our next question comes from Marta Sánchez from JPMorgan.

The first one is a follow-up on cost. So you're mentioning a commitment to positive jaws every year. You're going to be below 35% cost-to-income. What do you think is the right level to run the bank? And do you see a 1% positive progress every year for the next 3 to 5 years?

And the second question is on the customer spread. You are committed to that 270 basis points. This quarter, we are a bit far from that level, 261. How are you going to be rebuilding that margin? And what is the outlook for net inflows into your digital account for next year?

Marta, I'm going to start answering your second question about the customer spread. So Gloria has already mentioned that we are updating the cost of the digital accounts. This is going to be a good behavior in the first quarter of this year, and this is going to instantly recover part of the client margin, again, targeting the 270 in average that we've mentioned for the entire year. So for the year -- I mean, the cost of deposits are the ones that we will expect more contribution to this building up the 270.

Loan spread that have ended the year at 3.48% last quarter also is intended to recover across the year.

We expect or there is expectation of a steepened yield curve that will provide more upside in the second half of the year than in the first one, especially with mortgages. So we do expect that the contribution of the asset yield might be a little bit lower in the -- to recover that position. So maybe a couple of bps in average. But definitely, the cost of deposit is the one that will drive the most -- the majority of the building up of this 270s across the year.

And in terms of cost, yes, I think one -- always it's very difficult to tell if it's 1 or 1-point-something point every year. But definitely, the message of Gloria is that we have a strong ambition to reach very low levels of efficiency. We think that we should aim to reach 30% not too far ago. This is where we want to be in terms of efficiency ratio. And this is something that we want to build in the next 3, 4 years, maybe.

Our next question comes from Ignacio Ulargui from BNP Paribas.

I have 2 questions. The first one is on fees, looking to insurance fees and distribution fees related to insurance products. I mean, I just wanted to see if there could be any acceleration of that into 2026, if there is chances to rethink about the JVs that you had in the non-life business. What could be the strategy on the insurance business?

And the second question is on the capital front in the quarter, that has been like 19 basis points positive effect from intangibles and other adjustments, if you could elaborate a bit what was the driver of that?

Ignacio, I will try to answer your first question. As you know, we have to -- well, we have a JV with Mapfre that's in life insurance, but also in non-life in all segments but auto and home insurance. In home insurance, we are growing very nicely, actually, and also, in life insurance. But where we think that we could grow more is in all the other segments that are outside life and home insurance. And yes, we are working. We are working with Mapfre to see how we can give a greater push to this business. But we have no plans for the moment to make any changes in the JVs that we have. But as I mentioned, we are working with Mapfre to see how to improve this 7% growth rate.

Ignacio, I'll answer your questions. Yes, I mean, at the end of the year, we reduced the deduction of intangibles just because all the IT assets that have been developed come into production in this fourth quarter. Therefore, we reduced the deduction as intangible, and then, we start the amortization of these IT assets.

Our next question comes from Pablo de la Torre from RBC.

I had a first question on the potential uses of the excess capital that you're expected to generate going forward. So beyond organic growth in existing markets, how do you envision to use this excess capital? And I know Gloria has already commented on this last quarter, but you continue to be linked to a potential transaction in Ireland. What is kind of your latest thinking there? And given the outlook more generally for the bank, have you discussed plans to change the ordinary payout going forward?

Then, it's more of a -- my second question is a follow-up on the corporate structure simplification point in consumer finance that you have already discussed. But I wanted to invite you to comment on the revenue opportunity from this change. Payments and collection services is already a large contributor to fee income for the bank, but it seems that the revenue growth there has been decelerating a little bit over recent years. And so can you just please provide a bit more color on how this change can -- how the change you have announced can contribute to revenue growth going forward?

Thank you, Pablo. With respect to Bankinter consumer finance, and you are talking more about the payments, the new payments area, I suppose, that we announced at the end of the year. We have done this -- well, first, payment income is not growing so strong because the regulation with regard to payments for instant payments, well, is such that has an activity that was fee-generating, what has become an activity where you charge no fees at all. So that has had an impact this year. It won't have an impact next year because, obviously, we are already comparing equal things.

But with respect to payments, we have started a strategic thinking about this because this is an area that is really being transformed by technology with everything that has to do with stablecoins, digital euro with request to pay in the transactions between businesses. And we need to have a strategy and a value proposition. We need to understand what will be value-creating in the future, what is just a bluff, as we say, because there is a lot of noise, and we have to take the noise out of the room. I think payments can be -- there is a side of this strategy that is going to be protecting our business and the other one is going to be how can I make my business grow more.

For the moment, I cannot tell you anything because we are working on the strategy, as I mentioned, but I'm sure that we will have some news in the next quarter or maybe in June. With respect to capital, well, we are not changing. We are not going to change our dividend policy just because we have 30 basis points more capital than our objective level. And we are not building up capital for any purchase in Ireland. I mean, I've mentioned already we have -- our strategy there is organic growth. We are building a bank from scratch, and that is what we are going to do. We are not looking at PTSB. And -- I don't know, I cannot be any clearer here. So I think I've answered Pablo.

Our next question comes from Borja Ramirez from Citi.

I have 2 questions. Firstly is on Ireland. I would like to ask if -- given the ongoing sale of PTSB, if this is an opportunity for you to gain market share organically in the country?

And then my second question would be if you could kindly provide the average cost of your digital accounts, which I think was 1.6% in Q3 and also the average duration of this, please?

Okay, Borja. I will answer you with regard to Ireland. Well, as I've mentioned, we are not interested in acquiring any operations in Ireland. But obviously, as I have always said, when there is a corporate transaction, there is noise, and this is always an opportunity for the other established banks in the country. We have seen that in the past in Spain. And I'm sure that, that will be the same in Ireland. So yes, this could be obviously an opportunity to acquire clients there.

And I pass the second question to Jacobo.

Borja, yes, there is -- the current price is -- the current average cost is 20 bps lower then I think you mentioned the 1.6%. So now we are at 1.4% more or less.

Our next question comes from Carlos from Caixa, BPI.

So the first one was actually -- first one would actually be on fees. You have -- in this quarter, in the other fees caption, you have a substantial increase quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year. I'm guessing that this relates to the roughly EUR 10 million success fee on a transaction that you had mentioned in the previous quarter. Just wondering whether you see scope for similar fees of this nature in 2026 and whether the high single-digit guidance that you conveyed is with -- on the reported fee income or adjusted for that specific item.

Then on -- well, you mentioned you expect ROTE to be above 20%. What type of net profit income growth are you expecting for 2026? Should we think about double digit or below that?

Carlos, regarding the guidance on fees that we mentioned, it includes -- I mean, we are not -- we are considering the total fees of 2025, and then, we are -- our guidance is on the top of it. So we are not excluding these one-off fees because the volume is not huge, it's not relevant for the entire year. So we are not considering -- I mean, it's like it was usual BAU.

And regarding the net income, I think we've provided enough guidance to provide you an idea of this increase. I mean, the level of efficiency is going to improve. Cost of risk is going to stay or even can perform a little bit even better. So yes, as you can imagine, the net income is going to grow. And again, it's going to be a new record year.

Our following question comes from Ignacio Cerezo from UBS.

One is a follow-up from Marta's question on the digital account growth. So how much of your mid-single-digit deposit growth is explained this year by digital accounts?

And the second one, I think, Jacobo, you mentioned that you're not expecting any impact from the banking tax in '26 and '27. So is that comment constraint to those 2 years? And that means that '28 onwards, you're going to start booking the levy actually in the P&L or you just wanted to constrain the comments actually to the next 2 years?

Ignacio, I will answer you the second one. Actually, the banking tax is a temporary tax. So it is not expected to go beyond '28. Obviously, that is what I can say today. I don't know if they will again extend this stack. So it is not -- it is temporary. And with the figures we have in hand, we think that it will be 0 or absolutely immaterial because we have a cash tax rate that is very high and that absorbs very comfortably the figure that comes out from the theoretical banking tax.

And I'll pass back to Jacobo for the first question.

Yes. Ignacio, I think the digital accounts have played a relevant role in 2025. But again, it's a combination of many things because the level of term deposit has gone down, which is very important. Treasury accounts has also had a very good behavior because our business or the growth in our corporate banking business has also been very, very positive. And of course, digital accounts had a quite relevance, but it's not the only catalyst of the growth of deposits during 2025. We've been able to attract the deposits. Then afterwards, we've been able to convert into 2 assets under management that have brought a lot of fees. Digital accounts are very important in our commercial strategy. That's what can I tell you, but it's not the only thing that we have. We have salary accounts that also have a very good behavior. So it's important, but it's not the only driver of growth in our deposit base.

Our next question comes from Sofie Peterzens from Goldman Sachs.

Sofie from Goldman Sachs. So just going back to the digital accounts, we have seen almost a tenfold increase in digital accounts. Like could you give us the split of the digital client acquisition by country? So how much is coming from Spain, how much from Portugal and how much is coming from Ireland?

And then my second question would be on the fee income side. When we look at the fee growth in Q4, which was very strong, we see a lot of the increase actually came from other fees, I believe around EUR 17 million quarter-on-quarter, which is almost a doubling quarter-on-quarter of this fee line. Could you just elaborate what that other fee income line includes?

Sofie, I will answer the first one. Almost 100% of the client acquisition with digital accounts is Spanish. It comes from Spanish clients. We have actually acquired digitally in Spain around 130,000 new clients, and we have attracted around EUR 5 billion of new money from these clients. This has allowed us to do something, which is actually not be -- not have -- we have made -- changed these deposits with corporate deposits that were even more expensive. So actually, we prefer to pay an acquisition cost to acquire clients where we can cross-sell and make more money than to our corporate clients for the treasury excesses. We won the operative accounts from our corporate clients, which are much lower cost.

But just to give you an idea, we have already cross-sell to these clients. It's very, very, very early to say, but we have already cross-sell payroll accounts. We have cross-sell lending, and we have cross-sell investment products. We are at around a 7% cross-sell. But another thing that I want to -- well, to say is that around 10% to 15% of these clients that we have acquired are in the maximum level of the digital account, which is EUR 100,000. And this means they are probably more in the affluent segment or the private banking segment, and we are going to concentrate on those clients where we see potential to develop them.

Actually, we are doing some tests to see in which area of the bank, whether it is the branch network, whether it is the telephonic managers or whether it is digitally that we can actually develop these clients. And for the moment, we are having quite good results.

I will pass you through to Jacobo to answer you the fee income question.

Good morning, Sofie. Yes, I mean the fee -- we have recorded the EUR 10 million of success fee of alternative investment funds in that line. That's why you see in the other fees that amount. I must say that the alternative investment funds activity is performing very well. You've seen also that in the line of the equity method, we have recorded very good results. And I believe this is something that is going to be sustainable over time. We have 31 vehicles. We have a good average fees. We have quite strong expectations in the future. And as we mentioned during the call, we have brought to the bank around EUR 10 billion of net new money, and some of them flies to the alternative investment fund. So this is a business that is quite relevant for us. It's going to be another priority in coming years. And you should expect more fees to come from this business and more equity method income from this business in the future. Thank you, Sofie.

Our last question comes from Britta Schmidt from Autonomous Research.

I have a question on the digital account. How should we think about the adjustment on the pricing of the stock and versus the flow? So maybe you can give us some sort of indication as to what basis point reduction in deposit cost you expect from this initiative?

And on the acquisition cost of these customers, I think given that you just explained that these are mainly affluent, it's probably clear why the acquisition cost will be lower than for other channels, but maybe you can give us some sort of quantification of how much lower these acquisition costs are?

Well, I will give you, for instance, the campaign where we acquired most was more successful this summer, summer in September, which was also after the acquisition of EVO. So it's really the digital organization. The acquisition cost was EUR 20 per client. So really, the acquisition cost is more the cost of the actual account. What we want to do is -- I mean, as you have seen, we have already reduced by 50 basis points every single account in the digital organization. And we will go on with this trying -- doing trials and reducing the cost. Obviously, the front -- so the front, the new production, the new acquisition, will have to be higher, and we will be always in the order of the reference, ECB reference rate or somewhere around there, obviously, depending on how the competition is behaving.

And the second question...

Thank you very much all for attending today. That has ended our Q&A. And on behalf of the entire Bankinter team, we definitely thank you for your interest and participation. As a reminder, the Investor Relations team will be available after the webcast to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, and have a wonderful day and start to the new year.

Thank you very much. Goodbye.

Good morning to all, and thank you for joining this earnings call for the third quarter of 2025. Financial statements were posted with market authorities early this morning, and all materials can be found on our corporate website. Please refer to the disclaimer in this presentation and note that this call is being recorded.

Today, we are joined by our Chief Executive Officer, Gloria Ortiz; and Chief Financial Officer, Jacobo Diaz.

Thank you, Laurie. Good morning to all, and welcome to this third quarter 2025 results presentation. Since we last met in July, many things have happened. The tariff conflict between the European Union and the United States has been resolved. The Israel Gaza conflict seems for now to have reached its end. We learned the results of the BBVA Sabadell takeover bid last Thursday and interest rates have bottomed as the European Central Bank has ended rate cuts with inflation aligned with its targets.

Additionally, the EBA stress tests were published on August 1, in which Bankinter is again the listed bank in Spain as well as in the Eurozone with the lowest capital depletion in the hypothetical case of a very adverse economic scenario. We continue to navigate an uncertain and volatile environment. And despite this, I would like to highlight that this quarter's results remain satisfactory following the trend of the previous quarter with very relevant growth and activity across all business and geographies.

The third quarter has been another quarter with strong commercial activity translating into a post-tax result of EUR 812 million, 11% above the same period last year. These results are also accompanied by solid management ratios in terms of asset quality, efficiency, profitability and solvency. As reflected in the figures, we continue to report improving results in which, as usual, balanced and diversified growth is key. Credit and loans as well as retail deposits grew 5% with off-balance sheet balances up 20% year-on-year. Net interest income has continued to improve in the quarter.

In the second quarter, we reported a contraction of 5% that has been reduced to 3.5% in September. In fact, in quarterly terms, it is the second quarter that we have grown over the previous quarter, reaching levels of the third quarter of 2024. This is thanks to the resilience of the customer margin, which remains at 2.7% this year. On the other hand, fees and commissions continue to perform exceptionally well, maintaining a growth rate of 10.6% despite the fact that each quarter, the comparison with the previous year is more demanding. All this growth has been achieved while keeping our risk appetite intact, which is reflected in the NPL ratio that stands at 2.05%, improving previous quarter ratio as well as the one reported 12 months ago, which was 17 basis points higher.

Another key to our business model is efficiency, which stands at 36%, the best cost-to-income ratio in the sector. Diversified growth, asset quality and efficiency are the pillars on which the profitability of our business is based, maintaining a ROTE above 19%. As a result of intense commercial activity, we once again present strong diversified growth in business volumes this period. If we add credit and loans, retail deposits and off-balance sheet volumes, the volumes managed amount to EUR 234 billion at the end of September and grew by EUR 19 billion year-on-year. This is a remarkable growth rate of 9%.

Going into detail, lending reached EUR 83 billion at the end of the quarter, which is EUR 5 billion more than in September 2024. Retail deposits closed the quarter at EUR 85 billion, a figure EUR 4 billion higher than in the same period of the previous year. And finally, we added EUR 11 billion to the off-balance sheet business, which stands at EUR 66 billion, showing a strong growth of 20% year-on-year.

This year, we have seen a noticeable increase in new client acquisition, particularly through our digital channels. The integration of talent and technology from EVO Banco over the summer has assisted to further strengthen our digital strategy for the group. All geographies are growing at good pace. Spain, which accounts to 87% of business volumes grows 7%, while Portugal with 11% contribution to volumes grows by 12% and Ireland also stands out with 20% growth. New credit production also continues with improving trends as a result of the increased commercial activity. 16% in new mortgages, 6% growth in new business lending and a 3% drop in consumer credit due to the fact that we continue to reduce exposure to riskier segments.

On Page 7, for the past 12 months, we have seen increasingly positive trends in sector growth across the geographies in which we operate with close to 3% market growth in Spain, 7% in Portugal and 2% in Ireland. In each of these markets, we continue to gain market share in each of our business lines. In our core markets, Spain, the retail banking loan book increased by 3.4%, 30 bps above the market and our business banking book outperformed by 180 bps, reaching a 4.3% growth rate.

With both Bankinter Portugal and Ireland in expansion, we continue to gain significant market share, further diversifying our asset portfolio. Portugal grew 11%, 450 bps above the sector and Ireland, an exceptional 20% growth rate, well above market growth rates in both countries. In terms of revenues, there is a very notable performance of core revenues. This is the sum of net interest income and net fees and commissions, which has reached similar levels to those in the previous year. In quarterly terms, core revenues reached EUR 762 million, the largest in the series. And in fact, they are already growing both compared to the previous quarter by 1.3% and compared to the same quarter of 2024 by 2%.

This sustained solid performance quarter after quarter of fees and commissions growing at 10.6% compensates for over 90% of net interest income compression in the year due to the negative impact from the reduction of yield curves. Net interest income fell on a cumulative basis, 3.5%. But in quarterly terms, the upward trend continues. We are already 3% above the last quarter of the previous year and 5% more than in the first quarter, and we also grew 1% over the previous quarter.

Going now to the next page. I would like to talk about productivity. We have a scalable and efficient business that is reflected in productivity improvements. The volume of customers managed per employee expands year after year, while the cost per million euros of volumes managed decreases year-on-year. This is thanks to the investments made in technology and in particular, in artificial intelligence projects that are oriented to the improvement of personal activity, commercial efficiency, which relies mainly on algorithms, but also process efficiency and the improvement of the customer experience and the development also of new products.

Bankinter culture of applying targeted innovation across products, services and processes continues to deliver measurable results, reinforcing our strategic positioning and driving ongoing improvements in operational scalability.

I will now hand over to Jacobo, who will provide you with more additional detail and insights into our financial and commercial results.

Thank you very much, Gloria. Good morning, everybody. We are pleased to share once again another quarter growth and increased revenues and profitability. In operating income, we have grown by 4.7%, thanks to increased volumes, continued strong fee growth and effective margin management. We continue to rebalance operating costs more evenly over quarters with a year-on-year increase declining each quarter to end the year within our guidance. Cost of risk and related provisions declined by 10% compared to the prior year, reflecting a continued positive trend in risk management. Net profit rose 11% to EUR 812 million, gaining momentum to well surpass our initial goal of EUR 1 billion in 2025.

Let's move on to review additional details about each line in the following slides. So after the trough in the first quarter of this year, we continue to deliver quarter-on-quarter improvements in net interest income, now recovering levels of the third quarter of last year, reporting EUR 566 million, a 1% increase quarter-on-quarter. Asset yields continued to contract this quarter at 3.49%, down 22 basis points. This quarter reflects a typical low seasonality period where corporate banking activity is relatively lower compared to retail banking activity, which has influenced a bit of a mix change leading to a higher weight of repricing more in line with retail durations than the shorter corporate durations.

Given these dynamics and a stable outlook for Euribor 12 months rates, we believe average quarterly asset yields should drop marginally in Q4 to reach stability in the first half of 2026. Average customer margin for the year remained resilient at our 270 basis points, continuing to demonstrate our ability to effectively manage margins. With cost of deposits now at 84 basis points, a material 14 basis points decrease from last quarter, we are optimistic to reach levels around 75 basis points by the end of the year. Our NIM also remains resilient, a direct result of the effective balance sheet management.

After sharing the details of the NII results, we wanted to talk about the excellent results we have been seeing quarter-on-quarter related to our digital account strategy that we initiated last year as part of the new digital organization. This growing digital site account deposits in yellow in the graph on the left have aided in reducing and replacing typical long-term deposits with more granular and flexible shorter duration deposits. Between both digital site accounts and private banking or corporate treasury accounts, we now have a significant proportion of our deposits with less than a 3-month duration. This is less than half of the average duration of the term deposits.

Not only does this provide us greater agility to adjust deposit rates in line with market rates, but it also has a great source of increased customer activity, either transactional or through AUMs activity, driving additional fee volumes with a scalable operational model at a marginal lower servicing cost base. As you can see on the chart on the right, we have increased our average deposit spread over the past 4 quarters, reaching now close to 130 basis points. We believe these deposit spreads levels are likely to remain quite resilient, possibly with some upside for the coming years given the favorable rate environment as well as a more flexible deposit structure and our deposit gathering capability from our excellent existing and new customer base. Bear in mind that 50% of new customers are acquired through our 100% digital channels.

Fees continued to deliver sequential increases quarter-on-quarter even during the seasonally low summer months with an increase of 11% on a year-on-year basis, reaching EUR 196 million this quarter, up 2% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. This continued quarterly growth momentum is mainly attributable to the strong volume growth in fund management and brokerage services that we detail later in the presentation. We are quite optimistic to continue to maintain this growth momentum going forward, given our strong focus and strategy on affluent customer base and increasing flows from on-balance to off-balance sheet activity and customer-centric operating model.

It is also quite remarkable the performance of these business lines delivering improved results, notably in the equity method and dividend lines, up 29% on a year-on-year basis. The diversification of sources of revenue is well represented here given our diversified business investment over the past years in areas like our insurance JV partnership, our JV in Portugal with Sonae to deliver consumer finance products as well as our successful strategy with the Bankinter investment franchise, delivering alternative investment vehicles, allowing our customers to invest in real assets. This business line will continue to develop and deliver increased results over the coming years, providing upside risk in nontraditional revenue lines.

Regarding cost, we continue to reduce seasonality and balance our expenses over the year, increasing 3% when comparing average 25 quarterly cost to those in 2024. Although cost volumes may increase in Q4, they will be lower on a year-on-year basis when comparing to Q4 of 2024. cost-to-income ratio remains at an exceptionally low level of 36%, and will remain committed to maintaining positive operating jaws in the future.

On Page 17, loan loss provisions continue to show improvements versus last year with a cost of risk of 33 basis points. Other provisions also remained under control and performing well at a stable 8 basis points with no signs of deterioration in the market of our portfolio and with a well-managed risk management across the bank, we are optimistic to maintain current levels for the coming quarters.

Next page. Net profit achieved record levels once again, reaching EUR 812 million, an exceptional increase of 11% year-to-date.

Credit quality, credit and asset quality indicators continue to improve with the group NPL ratio dropping to 2.05%, down 17 basis points from last year. Spain down to 2.3%, Portugal at 1.4% and Ireland at 0.3%, all well below sector average.

Moving into capital. As Gloria mentioned, we are very pleased with our EBA's stress test results this quarter, resulting once again in the lowest level of capital depletion among all Spanish and Eurozone listed bank. Even under a severe economic adverse scenario, the potential capital depletion would only be 55 basis points. The prudent risk profile of our activity is differential. This has been a strong quarter for capital generation with the CET1 ratio at 12.94%, with a seasonal mix shift from corporate lending to increased retail lending, therefore, reducing RWA growth this quarter, which we review with the reverse in the following quarter with larger loan growth and density consumption and the annual operational risk capital consumption recorded in the fourth quarter.

As we continue to invest in technology and strategic projects, we have also seen an increase in intangibles this quarter due to the software-based solution under deployment, for example, with the new banking IT platform for Ireland or the Portuguese digital transformation program.

Moving into Page 22. Commercial activity and trends remain strong with customer volumes up 7% in Spain, 12% in Portugal and 20% in Ireland. Each region contributing at increased levels to the gross operating income of the bank.

On Page 23, loan growth, again, strong, up 4% year-on-year, growing both in retail as well as business lending. Retail deposits continued to demonstrate solid growth, increasing by 4% with also strong performance in Wealth Management, reflecting a 19% increase in assets under management, contributing to fee income increases of 11%. Profit before tax, up 6%, reflecting solid contribution for our core Spanish business. On Portugal, continued exceptional performance in lending activity across both business segments, up 11%, strong deposit gathering up 5% as well as increased wealth management and brokerage balances rising 23% on a year-on-year basis.

Moving into Ireland. Commercial momentum continues with mortgage loan growth up 23% as well as consumer finance loan growth by 11%. We have also launched our fully digital time deposit in the Irish market with an attractive value proposition that will surely grow deposit volumes over the coming quarters. Profit before tax contribution reached EUR 34 million with strong sequential increases in NII each quarter, up 16%.

Moving into corporate and SME banking. Business lending continued to deliver strong performance even with a seasonally low quarter in terms of new loans. Customer lending increased by 5%, well above sector loan growth. International business segment continues to be a key growth catalyst contributing to 1/3 of new credit production with a growth rate at 9% year-on-year.

Page 27, Retail Banking asset and deposit trends remain strong with increased new client acquisition driving core salary account balances up by 7%. New mortgage origination up 16% year-on-year with solid market share of new production in Portugal, Spain and Ireland at 6%. Our mortgage back book continues to grow by a strong 5% year-on-year, outperforming sector growth in every region.

Regarding Wealth Management, our high-quality customer base typically brings annual net inflows between EUR 5 billion to EUR 7 billion into the bank. However, this year, we have already surpassed this historical range and now reset our ambition to achieve between EUR 8 billion to EUR 10 billion of net new money every year. When taking into consideration the market effect as well, incremental wealth of our customers increased by EUR 20 million or a 16% increase on a year-on-year basis.

Moving into off-balance sheet volumes. We continue to grow in assets under management and assets under custody, reaching now EUR 150 billion with assets under management advisory or customer direct execution services in brokerage. Since our differentiation strategy centers around the client and how they prefer to interact with the bank rather than a product strategy, we indistinctively offer Bankinter products as well as third-party products to retain independence in terms of customer advisory services. With a full range of products as well as various servicing models based on customers' preference, we are able to consistently grow these off-balance sheet volumes, a key driver of continued fee growth quarter after quarter.

And finally, let me recap our ambitions and targets. Given our solid third quarter financial results, a strong commercial momentum and volume growth trends and with a stable outlook for Euribor 12 months over the coming year around 220%, we remain optimistic in terms of future growth potential. In terms of our specific ambitions for this current year, loan volumes are expected to continue to grow at mid-single-digit rate, similar than deposits with assets under management commercial activity following the same strong performance than previous quarters.

As market conditions become more favorable, we are committed to maintaining 2025 average customer margins around 270 basis points to support robust profitability that surpasses our cost of capital. In essence, we will not compromise margin integrity. Regarding NII, we anticipate that the final phase of retail repricing will take place mostly in Q4 and with much lower impact in the beginning of '26. Consequently, while some pressure on asset yields is expected to persist, it should moderate as our corporate portfolio has now been fully repriced in Q3.

On the deposit side, we will continue to reduce and manage costs in a balanced manner to support ongoing customer and deposit growth, particularly in the digital site accounts. As a result, we expect a more modest reduction in deposit costs in Q4 compared to Q3 between the range of 5 to 10 basis points. Given these dynamics and our current commercial strategy, NII in Q4 will keep growing quarter-on-quarter again and growing year-on-year again, which may result anyway in a slight slippage in our flattish NII guidance in 2025 that will be compensated by a stronger fee growth. With upside risk in fees, we increased our targets of high single-digit growth target to reach now double-digit growth in fees.

With respect to cost management, we continue to allocate and balance cost volumes over the quarters and remain on target for 2025 full year annual cost to grow mid-single digit. We also remain committed to delivering positive operating jaws in 2025, gross revenues above cost. As credit quality continues to improve, we are revising our targets with the expectation of cost of risk to fall below 35 basis points for the entire year. Although we do not provide guidance for the following year until the results presentation in January, we must say that as of today, with the current macro outlook for Spain, Portugal and Ireland, there is no reason why we should not expect similar levels of growth in our loan book as well as resilient client margin in our levels of cost of risk.

Efficiency will also remain at the top of our agenda to ensure sustainable levels of return on equity in 2026 and so on. And capital levels are expected to stay strong in coming quarters despite profitable growth expectation. I believe that this has been another high-quality set of results with no surprises, one-offs or extraordinary items, quite predictable that make us feel to be on track to achieve another excellent year in 2026.

Gloria, back to you for any closing comments.

Thank you, Jacobo. Well, as you can see, the results of these first 9 months of the year have once again beaten records of previous years with an 11% growth in net profit, and all this is accompanied by an excellent level of operational efficiency and asset quality, both ratios improving compared to the previous year. All this allows us to continue improving returns on capital, which stands at 18.2%, 30 bps better than in 2024 and continues generating value for our shareholders, both in terms of dividend distribution and the book value of shares.

To close the presentation of results for the first 9 months of the year, I would like to highlight that we are once again presenting solid results because of the recurring activity with our customers and the execution of a consistent long-term growth strategy. We are growing steadily in all the businesses and geographies in which we operate, keeping our risk appetite intact, even improving the risk profile of the loan portfolio as reflected in the NPL ratio and the increase in the coverage of the nonperforming loan portfolio. We continue to invest in projects and initiatives that allow us to keep pace with business growth. And despite this, we improved efficiency. All this results delivering a sustained return on the capital of the business, well above the cost of capital. For my part, this is all.

Thank you again very much for your attention, and I will pass now on to Laurie.

Thank you very much, Gloria. Thank you, Jacobo. Let's now move on to the live Q&A session, please.

[Operator Instructions]

Our first caller is Francisco Riquel from Alantra.

My first question is about the fast growth in digital accounts. It's 4x bigger year-on-year. So I wonder if you can comment on the cost of these digital accounts compared to your total cost of deposits and the alternative of time deposits where you are switching. And I wonder if you can also elaborate on the commercial experience with these online customers and cross-selling ratios. You are not exceeding your traditional mid-single-digit growth in loans and deposits. You are growing faster in AUMs, but I wonder if this is coming from these online clients or from your traditional affluent and high net worth clients.

And then my second question is about loan growth in Spain, which has slowed down year-on-year a bit, particularly in higher-margin corporates from 6% in Q2 to 4% in Q3. The sector has not. They're still growing by 3% in lower margin retail mortgages. So I wonder if you can comment on competition dynamics and update in terms of loan growth and also in the loan yield, where do you see the trough of this interest rate cycle?

Regarding the loan growth, I think we had another, I think, good quarter comparing year-on-year in terms of the loan book. As I mentioned, the seasonality of the third quarter is -- I mean, typical in Spain, it has a negative seasonality. And the corporate banking activity has been lower as we normally expect. So we do not have any sign of slowing down in that perspective. It's just a matter of seasonality. In fact, we keep expecting similar levels of growth at the end of the year compared to, I don't know, previous quarters. So basically, we do not expect any changes. You mentioned competition. Of course, there is competition in the corporate banking as well in the mortgage activity, but this has been always the case. So there's nothing special to highlight. I would say that the loan growth will continue to show strong results.

And regarding the digital accounts, definitely, digital accounts have been a quite relevant strategic commercial move for us in the past months and quarters. So we are delivering excellent results. We are capturing quite large volumes of deposits. We are cross-selling, of course, as you can imagine, plenty of different types of products. I wouldn't say that the largest volumes of AUMs are coming from the new digital accounts because it takes some time to transform and to cross-sell this type of accounts. But definitely, we are quite happy.

You were mentioning about the cost. The thing is that these digital accounts have a quite short duration and for us is -- we have the agility and the capacity to change prices within a quarter. So for us, from a commercial strategy, we're quite happy.

I will add 2 things. I mean the average cost of the digital accounts at present is around 1.6%. Actually, as Jacobo has said, the duration is around 2 months. So -- and we manage centrally, which is different to when it's products that are managed by the branch network, we manage centrally new prices. So it is quite easy and fast to reduce the cost. But on top of this, what I want to mention is that what we have been doing is a substitution effect. So basically, these deposits have been substituting higher tickets from enterprises and corporates. And there has been a reduction in the cost because we have been substituting higher costlier deposits.

As Jacobo has said, I mean, looking forward, we expect the cost of funds to retail funds to continue reducing next quarter -- sorry, this quarter and in the order of 5 to 10 bps depending on where the Euribor stands. With respect to competition, here, yes, we have been growing quite nicely in mortgages in Spain so far. But I have to say that the competition is starting to be a little bit irrational, particularly in fixed rate mortgages of long term like 30 years. So you can expect us to be a little bit less active in that segment, although we think that we will continue to grow.

Let's move on to our next question. Our next question comes from Borja Ramirez from Citi.

I have 2. Firstly is on the NII, if I were to base the Q4 NII of this year and multiply by 4 and add the loan growth, would this make sense from a technical point of view to -- for estimating the 2026 NII? Or would there be any other moving parts?

And then my second question would be in Ireland. I think you -- according to press, you launched a deposit of 2.6% rate, if I am correct. I would like to ask if you could provide some details on the growth strategy in Ireland in deposits.

Regarding Ireland, I mean, what we are doing is just a test for the moment. So it's a friends and family. We are offering this deposit only to our clients and only a certain amount. I mean, initially, we are talking about EUR 50 million. So this is like a welcome deposit, and it's not going to have any impact at all in this year NII, and I don't think in next year either because we are controlling, as you can imagine, the growth in these deposits. With regard to NII, multiplying by 4. Well, it's a little simplistic. It could be near it could be near if Euribor rates stay completely stable around the year. It will be probably better than that than the mere multiplication by 4.

Yes. I think our assumptions are we keep, as we mentioned, estimating that the average -- the client margin for coming quarters should be around 270 basis points and that we will continue to grow in similar -- the similar path that we've been growing in the past quarters. So that will be the main assumptions that you should take into consideration. As Gloria was mentioning, it's not just multiplying by 4. We definitely think it could be a little bit higher than that.

Our next question comes from Ignacio Ulargui from BNP Paribas.

Just wanted to get a bit of a sense on the capital performance of the quarter, what you just -- Jacobo flagged about reverting the effect of the mix in the quarter in the coming quarters. I mean still 12.9% looks to me like a very high level. Is there any chance that the bank considers changing the 50% payout ratio with the current trend of capital?

Second one is on costs. You said in the guidance, if I hear correctly, mid-single-digit growth. Should we expect a slightly more acceleration given the good performance of revenues that you front out a bit of cost for '26 in the fourth quarter beyond the natural seasonality that you have been trying to smooth this year? Or that would be -- or you're going to be very focused in keeping the costs on that limit to avoid slippage in '25?

Ignacio, regarding the capital performance, as I mentioned, we present a quite strong capital ratio this quarter. And I did mention that there is some seasonality impact in this figure. So for the fourth quarter, we do expect a growth or much larger capital consumption from the growth, especially from the corporate banking activity that tends to be quite strong at the end of the year and of course, growth in the retail business and in other geographies as we have done.

And additionally, I mentioned that there are some special recordings in the fourth quarter from capital consumption as the operational risk is fully recorded in the fourth quarter. So we do expect a figure probably lower than this one that we have shared today with you, although the results for the fourth quarter are going to be, again, very, very strong. To this means are we -- do we have in mind changing our dividend policy? I would say not for the time being. But of course, if we will see these trends in coming quarters, of course, we will -- we might think about doing whatever in terms of keeping our capital ratio in levels where we feel comfortable.

Ignacio, with regard to cost, I mean, we are very comfortable with the low mid-single-digit growth, and we will stick to this. I mean we don't see any reason why we cannot meet our target.

Our next question comes from Carlos Peixoto from CaixaBank BPI.

Carlos Peixoto from CaixaBank here. A couple of follow-up questions actually as well. So mostly on NII. So if I understood correctly, you're expecting to see some pressure on asset yields coming through still in the fourth quarter through the repricing mechanism. Then you mentioned deposit costs maintaining roughly the spread to Euribor. And I guess that some volume growth, as you mentioned, fourth quarter tends to be much stronger.

So putting all of this together, do you see enough support for NII in the fourth quarter to do materially better than in the third Q? And as you mentioned in the call, to see some -- well, basically that you won't be reaching the stable NII guidance, but I was just wondering whether we could be talking about a small single-digit decline in NII or closer to mid-single digit.

Carlos, we did mention that the cost of deposit in the -- we are expecting next quarter to continue to decline, probably at a lower speed that we saw in previous quarter. And we mentioned somewhere between 5 to 10 basis points decline in the coming quarter. But we also -- we mentioned that we are -- we have come to a much lower speed of loan yield repricing, and we do expect some sort of stabilization or a slight reduction in the fourth quarter. That will mean that we do expect client margin to recover, and we are quite strong optimistic in terms of we will have a good -- at the end of the day, a good final quarter. But indeed, like you mentioned that -- and I did mention there might be a slight or minimum slippage in the overall flattish guidance.

But again, it's going to be much more than compensated with fees. So we are good -- I mean, we are quite well optimistic about what's going to happen in the fourth quarter. So there is full repricing in corporate that has already been achieved in the third quarter. Euribor 12 months is behaving quite well around 220. There is a little bit more repricing from the mortgage book in the fourth quarter to come. But again, there is a strong seasonality that we believe will make a good fourth quarter to end up the year.

As I mentioned, the fourth quarter is going to be again higher than the third quarter and much higher than the same quarter 1 year ago. So we think we are optimistic about the fourth quarter of this year. And of course, the coming quarters in 2026. We think this 270 client margin is something that we -- is definitely our ambition, and we are definitely managing everything in order to achieve that figure.

Our next question comes from Ignacio Cerezo from UBS.

I've got one on the international credit book, which is around 30%, 35% of the total corporate lending book and seems to be growing much faster basically than domestic. So if you can give us some information, some color basically of what is in there and what is the reason is growing faster and what kind of sustainability you see on that?

And kind of related to this more on a system basis, from a mortgage growth point of view in Spain, obviously, housing prices going up very fast. It doesn't feel that the shortfall of housing is going to be corrected anytime soon. I mean, is there any risk that the demand actually ends up drying up faster because of, I mean, problems of affordability, I mean, difficulties from people to access housing, et cetera. Do you think actually the pickup of mortgage growth we are seeing in the last year or so has less or there's a risk actually that drives up into the next, say, 6 to 12 months?

Ignacio, with regard to mortgages, we don't see changes in demand in the very -- in the short term, so this year or next year. It is true what you're saying that prices go up and up and that there could start to be -- particularly in medium salaries, there could be problems of affordability. There are measures like the ICO lines where we are being active. Obviously, we have a little bit more than our market share that basically are trying to tackle this problem because they cover up to 100% of the value of the property.

So what we are seeing in mortgages rather is what I've mentioned, which is a competition that is not being very reasonable with regard to long-term fixed rates. And basically, we are not going to enter that war, particularly in those clients. Well, in our clients, we might do because if we know how profitable their relationship with them is okay, but it won't be a measure to acquire new clients definitely. I think that's for mortgages.

Ignacio, I'll take your question on international credit book. I think basically, our corporate banking Spanish clients are much more international than they used to be. They're much more focused on going abroad. And we do provide a quite large menu of products and services with a good technology, et cetera. So we are developing more technology, more, I don't know, supply chain management products, working capital facilities, endorsements, et cetera. So since we have increased our range of products and services to this type of clients, then the volume of activity and the loans and off-balance sheet items are keep growing and growing.

So this is some sort of sustainable. This is something that we do expect to keep growing at the same -- at similar levels. So no one-offs in here is quite recurrent. And this is for us a quite relevant source of revenues, in terms of NII, in terms of fees, and it's a quite profitable business.

Our next question comes from Alvaro Serrano from Morgan Stanley.

I just wanted to follow up on the loan growth. I take the seasonality and one thing, I just was curious, I wanted to double-click on your comments around derisking and the consumer book being down, I think you said 3% quarter-on-quarter. Where are you derisking? What kind of product, what region? And is it a one-off thing? And what should we be looking for in consumer going forward from here in terms of volume growth?

And then the second sort of follow-up question to the broader discussion in the call is, how do you think the pricing dynamics in the mortgage, in particular, is going to evolve over the next few quarters? Are you seeing the market being less bad? If it stays as competitive as it is, what's the end game for you in the mortgage market in Spain?

Alvaro, with regard to the portfolios where we are derisking, it is mainly open market consumer credit in Spain. So we are basically reducing our exposure and reducing also the new production and being more selective. That is on one hand. This portfolio anyway is not very significant in our overall book. And we continue to grow in consumer credit, but in our own clients in Spain and also in Portugal and in open markets, both in Ireland and in Portugal with Universo, the JV we have with Sonae.

With regard to mortgages, well, for the moment, we are not seeing any changes in the pricing dynamics. But hopefully, we will be getting to prices where we have some margin with respect to the swap curve. But for the moment, that is not the case. That is why I was mentioning that we will probably decelerate growth, not so much in mortgages with our clients, but rather in the acquisition of new clients with mortgages.

Our next question comes from Maks Mishyn from JB Capital.

Two questions from me, please. The first one is on your Wealth Management business. Press reported several hirings you did. What kind of AUM growth should we think of for Bankinter in the medium term? And does this mean that fees are also likely to grow above the mid-single digits we have seen historically?

And the second question is on capital, a follow-up on what the comfortable level is for you? And if the growth is not there, how can we think of deploying this capital?

Maks, I mean, definitely, the current levels of growth in the Wealth Management business is something that we believe are sustainable. Of course, there are market effects that are not controlled. And this is something we cannot control, neither estimate. But the capacity to keep bringing net new money to the bank, as we've mentioned in the call, is becoming higher and higher. So now our estimation has increased from EUR 5 billion to EUR 7 billion every year to EUR 8 billion to EUR 10 billion every year. And that, of course, means that has an impact on fees.

So definitely, we don't know exactly what's going to be the level of fees in -- the recurrent level of fees in the future, but we definitely think it's going to be quite strong and probably stronger that your -- I think you mentioned mid-single digit. So for us, again, the combination of our strategy in commercial activity has a full link in the Wealth Management activity and, of course, in fees. So...

With respect to capital, I mean, we feel comfortable with a level in the -- between 12 40, 12 60, something that can give us room to continue growing and that doesn't restrict that growth. So this is more or less the average level where we are comfortable.

Our next question comes from Pablo de la Torre from RBC Capital Markets.

Just a follow-up on Ireland on previous comments from Jacobo, you've mentioned the fixed-term deposit proposition in the country. But can you please remind us on the broader ambitions? And what are the next steps in the product road map in the country? And I guess in particular, you mentioned today your new higher ambition around net new money growth. So I was wondering if you were planning to start offering wealth products in Ireland next year.

Maybe if I can squeeze in another follow-up on capital. Given your excess capital position and given also current valuation levels, can you just kind of update us on your appetite for inorganic growth from now?

Pablo, regarding Ireland, definitely, the first phase is through the launch of the term deposit that we've mentioned before. Our next ambition is going to be the launch of current accounts at the beginning of 2026. And I think this is going to be the great moment of funding the growth that we are expecting in Ireland with deposits from local in Ireland. So we are targeting to fund whatever growth we have in the loan book in Ireland with the deposit book in Ireland as well. So this is the ambition, and this is the next step. We are not considering for the time being to move into the Wealth Management business in Ireland. I think we have plenty of things to capture and to target before that business.

And with respect to inorganic growth, well, our appetite is very, very low. As you can imagine, we are an organic grower. We have always grown organically in the different businesses and geographies where we have the capabilities, and this is what we are doing in Ireland, and this is what we will continue to do in the future.

Our next question comes from Britta Schmidt from Autonomous.

I have a follow-up on the consumer exposure, the open market consumer exposure in Spain that you talked about. Could you share with us the volume of that book and what the driver was for the derisking? I mean, have you seen a material change in the cost of risk there? And if so, why?

And then on the -- you mentioned the operational risk impact in Q4. I mean, would it be reasonable to assume that it could be up to 20 basis points? Or do you expect something less than that?

I will answer the consumer credit exposure. This is a very small book. It's like around EUR 1.3 billion. Not all of it is being derisking. The reason mainly here is not the cost of risk, it's an ROE question. So basically, we think there are better businesses where we can allocate our capital, and this is why we have decided to reduce our exposure in this book.

Britta, regarding the operational risk, of course, we don't know the figure right now. As you know, the rules have also changed with Basel IV. So it's probably a little bit ambition for me to give you a good estimation. But it could be somewhere between 10% and 30%. So probably your 20% might be in the middle.

Our next question comes from Hugo Cruz from KBW.

I wanted to ask you about fee growth. If you could give a bit more guidance. I think before your guidance didn't assume any performance fees, which you had a lot of them in Q4. So the new guidance of double-digit growth year-on-year, does that include performance fees as well or not?

And the second question on the cost of risk. You've improved your guidance a few times this year. The guidance for this year is below what you did in the previous 2 years. And then if we have a bit of slowdown in resi mortgages, does that mean the cost of risk next year could be higher than this year? Your thoughts on that would be very helpful.

Hugo, regarding the fee growth, I think we -- as of today, we are already at the double-digit growth. So just basically, we do expect to continue growing at a similar path that we've done in the past quarters. We don't know yet if there's going to be any success fee. That's why we are not included -- we are not including success fees in those estimations because honestly, we don't know it yet. And regarding cost of risk, I think what we mentioned is that we are expecting to end the year with a cost of risk below 35 basis points. We are currently around 33 basis points as we shared in the presentation.

We don't think that next year is going to be a higher figure. There is no reason why we should say that because what we're seeing is that there is quite stable situation. So we are very comfortable with the current situation of cost of risk. We are not perceiving any changes in the levels of delinquency, et cetera. And in fact, as Gloria was mentioning, we are reducing the exposure to some businesses with higher level of risk. So for the next year, we do not expect an increase in the estimation of cost of risk.

Our next question comes from Fernando Gil de Santivañes from Intesa.

Two quick follow-ups, please. Regarding fees, I mean, there has been one transaction in Q3 regarding the renewables, similar to the one you did in the past, but you have not accounted it in Q3. Can you please guide us when this transaction and if there is any potential positive one-off coming in Q4? And is that included in the guidance? This is one.

The second one is on costs. In the second quarter, you have the headcount down marginally, but down. Has this anything to do with the growth profile that you have been flagging during this call?

I will answer the fees. Yes, this quarter, we have made a transaction, the sale of a portfolio of renewables. And we have not accounted for the success fees of this transaction so far because obviously, the contract has to -- how to say -- we have to close the contract exactly. So anyway, the fees that we're talking about are not material. It will be less than EUR 10 million or even a little bit less. So it is not something that is going to move the arrow.

With respect to costs and the headcount, we are reducing the headcount in Spain, and we are doing that for several reasons. The first is that we are investing quite heavily in artificial intelligence, and this is allowing us not to replace the employees that go from the bank either voluntarily mainly. And I remind you that we have absorbed EVO Banco this year, and this means that we have 200 more employees Bankinter Spain, and that was enough to absorb the growth in -- needed in the headcount for the year. But anyway, I think that with respect to the headcount, you can expect the headcount in Spain to remain very stable next year or even to reduce a little bit because of all these investments we are making in artificial intelligence.

Thank you. That ends our Q&A session. I would like to thank you on behalf of the entire Bankinter team, and Felipe and I will be there to support you for any questions post the webcast. Thank you all, and have a wonderful day.